Huw Irranca-Davies: Give it the comfort that this Minister has met both the regulator and United Utilities and will continue to put on the pressure. It is right that the dialogue between the independent economic regulator and the water companies is the way they define how they will take their regime forward. I am clear that there should not be disproportionate impacts on groups such as community hall groups, scout associations, churches and so on. The great thing is that United Utilities has applied a moratorium in order to examine that very issue in its area. I am looking forward to learning the outcome of that shortly, because I hope that it will guide the way forward for future decisions.

Jim Fitzpatrick: The Rural Payments Agency has made a year-on-year improvement in the timing of payments under the single payment scheme. For scheme year 2008, at 30 June, it had paid out around £1.625 billion, representing more than 99.6 per cent. of the estimated total fund.
	The agency has been working to reduce the administrative costs of the scheme, as well as to reduce the burden on farmers. A number of initiatives to improve the process of claiming payment have been introduced, including online applications and the issuing of claim forms that are part-completed. Those initiatives ensure that the overall process is easier and quicker.

David Taylor: Some years ago, my hon. Friend—as I shall call him—the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) and I were both Members of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when it was doing an inquiry into the disasters of the single farm payment. The process has improved considerably, but is the Minister aware of the problems with the rural land register, which is at the heart of the single farm payment? Some 120,000 farms in England have received their maps recently, but those maps are showing remarkable things, such as hedges and walls that were demolished or removed in the 1950s, neighbourhood land being attached to farmers' holdings and so on. What confidence can we have that the single farm payment in 2010 will be based on accurate data?

Michael Jack: The costs of running the single farm payment scheme are but one item in DEFRA's budget. The Secretary of State has made it clear that, from 2011, his Department's budget will be reduced. Will he now outline what cuts in services to the customers of DEFRA the Secretary of State's announcement entails?

Danny Alexander: The Minister will be aware that one sector that has been hit hard by both rising costs and falling demand is the hill sheep farming sector. That is reflected in the fact that in the highlands, for example, more and more farmers are taking their stock off the hills. That has a knock-on effect on one of the industries that could buck the economic trend, tourism, because of the work that hill farmers do to maintain and support the countryside as a whole. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that there is greater support for the hill sheep farming sector over the coming years of recession, to maintain the benefits that they bring to the wider community and the wider economy?

Dan Norris: I am not going to take any lessons from the hon. Gentleman about this. Let us be clear: if the Conservatives were in the Government now, they would be cutting the figures immediately. We are looking very carefully at efficiency, because it is very important that we deliver value for money. We must make sure that what we do is not just good quality, but cost effective and bears in mind the council tax payer and taxpayers.

Ben Wallace: Many Dairy Farmers of Britain producers in Lancashire and Cumbria are suffering because of the collapse of their dairy business and associated cash-flow problems. Will the Secretary of State consider extending meeting the requirements of the nitrates directive by perhaps one year? Will he also consider bringing forward some of the single farm payment due in the autumn for affected farmers to alleviate some their cash-flow problems?

Hilary Benn: The most important thing that we have done, as I have just informed the House, is work with all the partners to try to ensure that farmers can find other buyers for their milk. Considerable progress has been made, although one should acknowledge the position of workers in the creameries and dairies that have not been able to be bought by others. The dairy industry is facing longer-term problems because of the difficulties in the world market. Through the Dairy Supply Chain Forum, which we established in 2003, we are working with the sector to look ahead. There is over-supply at the moment, but the longer-term prospects are slightly brighter.

Hilary Benn: I convened in April a meeting of all those who have an interest in skills in the industry, and the industry has undertaken to come back to us with its plan. We are providing support through Fresh Start, funding for new businesses in rural areas, Train to Gain, apprenticeships, and of course the new land-based diploma for 14 to 19-year-olds, which will be available from this September.

Roger Williams: These are difficult times and some farmers with land in my constituency have not received their single farm payment from four years ago because of the difficulty of ensuring that cross-border applications are properly instituted. Will the Secretary of State please respond to me if I supply details to him, so that we can obtain some relief for those farmers?

Philip Hollobone: DEFRA assumes that in a typical year, whatever that is, the costs of coping with such outbreaks might be £134 million, of which £65 million would fall on the Government and £69 million on the industry. The Secretary of State now proposes that the industry shares half the Government's costs, effectively meaning that farmers will pay 70 per cent. of the overall bill. Are not DEFRA's estimates of the overall cost of preventing such outbreaks too high, and is not the proposed burden-sharing unfair?

Jim Fitzpatrick: Setting the milk price is a commercial matter to be resolved through private negotiations that should take place within the parameters set down by competition law. The market must determine prices. I fully recognise, however, the different challenges that remote farms face and which the hon. Gentleman raises. They can be exacerbated by the fact that such farms tend to be smaller, as he describes, and unable to provide the quality of milk to make collection commercially viable. In the case of Dairy Farmers of Britain farmers, we have ensured that the parties involved have got together to make haulage costs more viable. That is one way in which remote farms could look after their business interests more collectively.

Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman points to the Flood and Water Management Bill, which is a really good example of our getting on with it in light of the terrible floods that affected people in 2007. I simply say that the answers that the House has heard so far today clearly indicate a Department getting on with it and helping the farming industry to ensure that we can produce enough food.

Hilary Benn: I will announce my decision very shortly, but as I indicated to the National Farmers Union conference this year—and as my right hon. Friend will be well aware—in the end, I do not have a fixed view about the means of achieving the goal that we all share, which was set out well by those on the Opposition Front Bench earlier. In the end, we want an effective scheme that will work, and generally speaking, if we can encourage people to take part, we will get better results.

Hilary Benn: We meet representatives of the waste industry on a pretty regular basis. Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Member for Wansdyke (Dan Norris) indicated in answer to an earlier question, we have seen progress in recent years in increasing the proportion of packaging being recycled. However, my hon. Friend is correct: the other part of the equation is about trying to reduce the amount of packaging that goes on goods in the first place.

Alan Duncan: I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for giving us the business, and may I also thank her for at last getting this year's draft legislative programme published? But will she explain what on earth has happened to the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill? The former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Salford (Hazel Blears), championed it on Second Reading almost exactly a month ago, and resigned three days later. Two new Ministers turned up to steer the Bill through the Committee, one of whom, the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), arrived on the first day from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and left on the last day for the Treasury. Now we learn from the draft legislative programme that there is to be a local democratic renewal consultation. Do the Government plan to run this consultation concurrently with the Bill? If so, what is the point of a Bill that precedes consultation? If not, are Ministers so ashamed of the Bill that they simply plan to junk it altogether?
	Will the right hon. and learned Lady tell us what has happened to the motion that she agreed to table to refer the question of privilege raised by the arrest of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) to the Committee on Standards and Privileges? We were led to believe that this should have happened this week or even last week. After many months, this delay is not just annoying; it is beginning to get a bit rude. Will she definitely confirm that the motion will be tabled without further delay?
	Talking about delays, may we have a statement on the time taken by Treasury Ministers to reply to Members' letters? Apparently, in some cases, it has taken six months to get a response to what are often urgent constituency cases. That is shameful incompetence. I understand that the Ministers are all very busy trying to explain to the Prime Minister that there is no more money in the kitty, but may I ask the right hon. and learned Lady to remind them that their duty is to this House, and that Members who raise the plight of their constituents with them expect a prompt and full response?
	Yesterday, the Prime Minister said:
	"It would be wrong to have a spending review now... Because we are in the midst of a recession"—[ Official Report, 1 July 2009; Vol. 495, c. 296.]
	Yet, later that day, No. 10 briefed that the Prime Minister had not confirmed a delay to the spending review. It is impossible to get a straight answer from anyone in the Government. Given that the Chancellor was forced to rebut the noble Lord Mandelson's suggestion earlier this week that the autumn statement would be binned, will the right hon. and learned Lady tell us who is telling the truth and whether the Government will publish their spending plans before the next election?
	May we have an urgent debate on the plight of students from poorer families under this Government? In the Prime Minister's first week in Downing street, he said that teenagers from less well-off families would be guaranteed greater support at university. Now we learn from a written statement from the higher education Minister that the Government have totally backtracked on that pledge. Student grants are to be frozen, while tuition fees are to be increased. Is that not just a further indication that the Prime Minister is incapable of being straight with people and that his cuts in financial support will undeniably mean that poorer students will struggle to get through their degrees?
	I received a letter this morning from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on Equitable Life. He says—slightly ambiguously in the manner of writing, I have to say—that there will be a statement before the House rises to update us on the progress of Sir John Chadwick, but will the right hon. and learned Lady confirm that this will definitely be a full oral statement, which will allow the House the opportunity to question the Minister on the Government's plans to compensate those who have lost out? Does she appreciate that a written statement would be an insult to this House?
	Finally, may we have a statement on vandalism in this House? Indeed, may we have an inquiry into who has been regularly defacing the Dispatch Box opposite me and in front of the right hon. and learned Lady? It would appear—I can see it from here—that the culprit strikes once a week with a black felt-tipped pen, and detectives have already noted that the gravest occurrence seems to be on a Wednesday each week at around midday? Does the Leader of the House have any inkling of who the culprit might be, and is she prepared to reprimand him in the strongest possible terms?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman asked me about privilege and what happened with the office of the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). As he will remember, the House decided, following a request from the then Speaker, that a Speaker's Committee would be established to look into search powers and the arrival of police on House premises. It was decided to set up such a Committee, but not before the police action had concluded, since when the shadow Leader of the House has asked for wider questions relating to privilege and criminal proceedings to be looked at. Discussions are under way on whether a two-pronged approach, involving the Standards and Privileges Committee as well as the Speaker's Committee, may be necessary.
	I have agreed with the hon. Gentleman that we should look more widely than at questions of search and seizure and take the whole question of privilege into account. What still needs to be finalised is whether we need the two Committees to achieve that or just the one. The shadow Leader of the House rolls his eyes, but I want to get right the number of Committees—not too many or too few—to deal with these issues.
	We have agreed on the terms of reference, but we have not quite got there on the question of who should undertake the review. I hope and expect that we will get there in good time—possibly next week. With any luck, and if we can get agreement, we may not need a debate; we can just put it through on agreement, which is what I am aiming for. Sure as hell, if I put it through and get it wrong, there will be lengthy debates about it, which would be problematic. I know that the hon. Gentleman and all hon. Members will co-operate fully to achieve consensus so that we will not have to debate it further.
	Of course Treasury Ministers are accountable to the House. It is important for there to be full accountability both in relation to parliamentary questions, written and oral, and in relation to letters from constituents. I know that the Deputy Leader of the House keeps a close eye on the issue of responses to questions, and I will look into the position at the Treasury.
	Incidentally, what was said about Business Ministers' reply times confused the issue of letters from the public with that of letters from Members of Parliament. Obviously all letters should be answered promptly and effectively, but Members of Parliament must have priority.
	The shadow Leader of the House asked about the spending review. As he will know, we have set out the plans for all Departments' spending until April 2011. In the past, they were informed of their spending only yearly.
	As for students from poorer families, since we came to power we have made increasing access to further and higher education a massive priority, particularly in constituencies such as mine where, in some instances, no member of the student's family has taken part in it. In my constituency alone, there has been a 300 per cent. increase in the number of young people going into further and higher education. That is due to a combination of increasing investment from the public purse and increasing investment from students—they pay the money back, but only when they obtain jobs—as well as extra grants and loans. I think that our record in helping young people enter further and higher education speaks for itself, and I must point out that the Opposition have never proposed, or even supported, an increase in provision.
	As the hon. Gentleman said, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will update the House on Equitable Life. I cannot yet say what form the update will take, but I am in no doubt of the keen interest in the issue among constituents of Members in all parts of the House, and I shall make that clear to the Treasury.

Harriet Harman: I will ask the Foreign Secretary to write to the hon. Member with an update, and to place a copy of the letter in the Library so that other hon. Members can see it.

Andy Burnham: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the AH1N1 swine flu pandemic.
	As of today, there are 7,447 laboratory confirmed cases of swine flu in the UK. A significant number of people have been hospitalised. Three people, all of whom had underlying health problems, have, sadly, died. Since the first UK case was confirmed on 27 April, health protection officers, NHS staff from across the UK and Department of Health officials have been leading the fight to contain the virus.
	Last week we started to see a considerable rise in swine flu cases, and the emergence of hot spots in London, the west midlands and Scotland. Since then cases have continued to rise significantly. There are now, on average, several hundred new cases every day. This creates challenges on the ground and pressure on services, but the response from the health community has been tremendous. I hope that the House will join me in putting on record again our sincere thanks to staff in the Health Protection Agency and the NHS, and to general practitioners and all those who work in primary care.
	Our efforts during the containment phase have given us precious time to learn more about the virus, to build up antiviral and antibiotic stockpiles and to start to develop a vaccine. We have always known it would be impossible to contain the virus indefinitely, and that at some point we would need to move away from containment to treating the increasing numbers falling ill. That is why last week I announced the move to outbreak management. That gave hot spots, where there is sustained community-based transmission, more flexibility to deal with the virus.
	Scientists now expect to see rapid rises in the number of cases. Cases are doubling every week, and on this trend we could see more than 100,000 cases per day by the end of August—although I stress that that is only a projection. As cases continue to rise, we have reached the next step in our management of the disease. Our national focus should be on treating the increasing numbers affected by swine flu. Based on experts' recommendations and with the agreement of Health Ministers across all four Administrations, I can today tell the House that we will move to this treatment phase across the UK with immediate effect.
	That will mean that in England the Health Protection Agency will take a step back and primary care will take the lead in diagnosing and distributing antivirals. There will be an immediate end to contact tracing and prophylaxis in all regions, GPs will now provide clinical diagnosis of swine flu cases rather than awaiting laboratory test results, and primary care trusts will now begin to establish antiviral collection points where necessary. The new approach will also mean a move from the daily reported figures of laboratory confirmed cases from the Health Protection Agency to more general estimates of spread.
	Our policy on schools is that they should not close because of individual cases of swine flu but that they could close if the particular local circumstances warranted it. For example, there might be grounds for closure if a significant number of pupils or teachers are ill, or if it is a special school with particularly vulnerable pupils. The HPA will advise on outbreak control issues as usual, and closures will be reported to the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
	I must report to the House that the Civil Contingencies Committee has had lengthy discussions, drawing on expert scientific advice, about who should be treated with antivirals if they contract swine flu. Health Ministers across all four Administrations have noted clear scientific advice that the majority of cases in the UK so far have not been severe, with those catching the virus making a full and fast recovery. However, a minority of people here and overseas have had more serious illness and some have died.
	As we move into the treatment phase, Ministers have considered whether we should continue to offer antivirals to all patients displaying symptoms or whether a more targeted approach should be adopted, focusing on those most at risk of becoming more seriously ill. When very little was known about the disease—especially given the reported fatalities in Mexico—using antivirals prophylactically was sensible to protect people, and may have helped to contain the initial spread of the disease.
	During the containment phase, experts have had time to study the virus. Some experts now suggest that since the virus has proved largely mild, antivirals should be used only to treat those in designated higher-risk groups—that is, those who are more susceptible to developing serious illness or complications. Those are all the groups at risk from seasonal influenza, plus pregnant women and children under five. The experts argue that overusing the drugs can increase the chances of antiviral resistance and expose too many people to the risk of side effects from the medicine.
	The scientific advisory group for emergencies—SAGE—says that, on balance, the science points towards a targeted approach, but it acknowledges that this is a "finely balanced" decision. Expert advice points to the fact that, as this is a new virus, its behaviour cannot be predicted with certainty. Swine flu is different from seasonal flu in that most serious illnesses have been in younger age groups, as happened in all three 20th-century influenza pandemics. A doctor faced with symptomatic patients cannot yet predict with certainty the course of their illness and whether or not they will be in the small proportion who may become more seriously ill.
	Given that, we have decided to take a step-by-step approach. That means that, as in the outbreak-management phase, we will continue to offer antivirals to all those who have contracted the illness. However, it remains a matter of clinical discretion to decide whether antivirals should be prescribed in individual cases, particularly in circumstances where doctors are likely to be contacted by patients with coughs and colds and by the worried well, in addition to those with swine flu. Expert advice emphasises the high importance of treatment with antivirals of those in the higher risk groups. We will therefore issue clear guidance to doctors to ensure that those at higher risk get early priority access to antivirals.
	I acknowledge that this is a cautious approach. Many people will be able to recover from swine flu without the need for antivirals and they may therefore choose not to seek treatment. However, we are much closer to the time when we will receive the first doses of the pandemic flu vaccine that will potentially offer high protection. In the meantime, it is prudent to use our only current measure against the virus— antivirals—to the maximum effect. The science indicates that, as we discover more about the virus and develop a more precise categorisation of risk groups, we are likely to reassess our approach and move to a more targeted use of antivirals. We will keep the matter under review, with advice from SAGE, and will update the House as and when necessary.
	Today, we will set out the new arrangements in a short guide which will be e-mailed to NHS staff and made available online for the public. I know that local GP surgeries and hospitals, particularly in hot-spot areas, are coming under increased pressure. It is important that we do everything we can to reduce the strain on local health services, so we will begin to establish and use alternative routes for people to receive treatment. Initially, that will be via www.nhs.uk or the swine flu information line. Subsequently, it will be via the national pandemic flu service.
	So, if people think they have swine flu, they should first go online and check their symptoms on www.nhs.uk or call the swine flu information line on 0800 151 3513. If they are still concerned, they should then call their GP, who can provide a diagnosis over the phone. If swine flu is confirmed, they will be given an authorisation voucher that someone who can act as a flu friend can take to an antiviral collection point to pick up antivirals. The collection point may be a pharmacy or a community centre.
	As cases rise further, we will move to a system where cases are diagnosed and dealt with by the national pandemic flu service. That will take the pressure off GPs by allowing people to be diagnosed and given their antiviral vouchers either online or via a central call centre. I can tell the House today that preparations are now at an advanced stage, and that we expect the service to be ready when it is needed. At that point, if people have swine flu symptoms they should go on to the national pandemic flu service website, or ring the dedicated call centre.
	Finally, I should like to update the House on vaccines. We have now signed contracts to secure enough vaccine for the whole population. We expect the first batches of vaccines to arrive in August, with around 60 million doses—enough to vaccinate 30 million people—available by the end of the year and more following that. Administering vaccines will need to be prioritised, and we will make a decision on that when we know more about the risk profile.
	Most cases of swine flu have not been severe and we are in a strong position to deal with this pandemic. However, we must not become complacent and, while doubt remains about the way that the virus attacks different groups, today's decision on the move to the treatment phase reflects our caution. I commend this statement to the House.

Andy Burnham: I thank the hon. Gentleman for the measured tone of his remarks, again, and for all his advice as we go along. I am grateful to him for the helpful discussions that we have had. I am particularly grateful for two points today. I welcome his support for moving to the treatment strategy and the timing of that move. He and I agree that the pressure on the system is such that it is the right time to take this step, and I think that it will be welcomed across the NHS. I also welcome his statement that he agrees with the cautious approach that we have outlined in the statement that antivirals should be offered to all those who display symptoms.
	The House will have heard over the years, as we have prepared for this eventuality, how steps were taken by the Department of Health to put us in the strongest possible position to plan and face any outbreak of a flu pandemic, and because of that preparation we can use the stockpile of antivirals to offer that cautious approach. As I said in my statement, as the availability of the vaccine comes on line, pressure on the antiviral stockpile will obviously be relieved. So we think that that approach is prudent, although I say again that the science points us to a more targeted use of antivirals. In discussion with colleagues in the devolved Administrations, I felt that now was not the right time to go, given that SAGE said that the decision was "finely balanced." We need to know more and we need to have more conclusive evidence before taking a move of that kind.
	I further welcome what the hon. Gentleman said about the policy on school closures. It is worth pointing out that many schools in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have already broken for the summer, and that in itself may help us to control the spread of the illness in those countries. The policy has to be judged locally—a decision has to be taken on the ground—and I assure him that, if there are concerns and grounds to close, although it is the job of the Health Protection Agency and others to advise, it is the job of the head teacher and the school governing body to take the final decision about any school closure.
	The hon. Gentleman asks about the flu line and the readiness of antiviral collection points around the country. I can confirm that, through strategic health authorities that have been working with PCTs, we have now in place sufficient collection points that can be stood up within seven days. So I can give him the assurance that he sought. Obviously, we can also activate the interim pandemic flu service within a short time frame. That point has not yet been reached, but I can assure him that we will update the House on that issue over the coming days.
	The hon. Gentleman asks about access to antibiotics and the size of the antibiotic stockpile. We are on track to have sufficient antibiotic stocks to cover 31 per cent. of the UK population, which equates to 19.6 million courses, by the end of September, with the stockpile having reached over 10 per cent. of the population—6.2 million courses—by mid-June. He has challenged on that point a number of times; he is absolutely right to do so. I will continue to update him on it. Of course, antibiotics may be needed to treat some of the most common complications of flu, including bacterial infections of the respiratory tract and lungs. It is important that anyone who thinks that they are in danger of developing such complications should get in touch with their GP.
	I want to make a couple of final points. The hon. Gentleman asks me whether we can debate prioritisation. I will have to reflect on whether a debate in the House is the right thing to do. At all times, we should be led by the guidance from SAGE and the experts. I can assure him that we will bring our conclusions to the House. Indeed, if there is a measure of debate about them, I do not think that that would be a bad thing, but I do not want to give a commitment to hold a debate on the Floor of the House, when we are obviously dealing with a fast-moving situation.
	Lastly, as was raised during Prime Minister's questions yesterday, there needs to be a mechanism so that we can continue to update both Front-Bench teams and hon. Members on both sides of the House over the summer. Perhaps we need to find a way—perhaps through the Speaker's Office, or some other mechanism—whereby we can get virtual statements, as he referred to them, to any hon. Member who wants one.

Sandra Gidley: I start by offering apologies from my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who is unable to be here today. He asked me to thank the Secretary of State and his predecessor for keeping him fully informed throughout the progress of the flu pandemic. I should like to add my thanks for the advance notice of today's statement.
	I, too, should like to thank the NHS staff who have been dealing with the illness and all those at the Department of Health who have been providing support to others behind the scenes and burning the midnight oil—they do not get praise very often. We, too, welcome the cautious approach that the Secretary of State is taking to these matters. It is a difficult decision—it is a finely balanced one—but we support him in the conclusion that Ministers have reached.
	I have a short list of questions, which are designed both to be constructive and to elicit more information. First, at the moment, all who have contracted the illness will be offered medication, but that could change to its provision to at-risk groups only. The Secretary of State did not mention the position of NHS staff. It seems to me that particularly front-line staff in hospitals are a special case, so has any different consideration been given to providing prophylactic measures for those staff and are they being offered any special treatment? What contingency plans are in place if flu affects the availability to work of large numbers of front-line staff?
	What assessment has the Secretary of State made of PCTs' preparedness? My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk has asked in the past for details of preparedness to be published, and it would be helpful if that was done. My understanding is that some PCTs have made excellent preparations and others less so. What measures are being taken to bring the less proactive PCTs up to speed?
	Are sufficient stocks of Tamiflu left to meet predicted demand? Is there any clarity about whether the hot weather has affected the spread of the virus in any way, or has it had the opposite effect?
	With regard to information, the Secretary of State mentioned the hotline, but he will probably recall that most households received leaflets earlier in the year at the beginning of the outbreak. I suspect that many householders will have thrown away those leaflets, which provided a useful range of information. So are there any plans to re-leaflet or to run a wider media campaign, so that people can be informed about the outbreak? Will the e-mail to NHS staff include pharmacies that are contracted to the NHS?
	I have a couple of questions about collection points. Has any special consideration been given to the more rural areas, which very often rely on dispensing GPs? I suggest that it is probably not the best idea to have even flu friends or other possible contacts descending on dispending doctors' surgeries. So has any thought been given to such access in rural areas?
	There has been some publicity in the media about something called a flu party. It strikes me as particularly bizarre that parents want to try to improve their children's chances of contracting flu. Has the Secretary of State had any advice on whether that is a good or a bad thing? It seems to me instinctively that it is a bad thing, but there has been much in the media about it.
	Finally, I welcome—

Andy Burnham: The House has been debating second jobs this week, and my hon. Friend's second job is particularly useful in this regard. He is not only representing his constituents here on swine flu, but treating them, and my praise of GPs of course extends to him.
	We are very conscious of the ability of primary care to cope, and although the national pandemic flu service is new, we think it is important to send out the message today and consistently about why it is important for people, where they can, to use that alternative route to secure treatment. There will continue to be patients who will wish to go to their GP, and that is right and proper; I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees and does not want any heavy-handed interference. We want to encourage the vast majority of people, however—particularly those to whom the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) referred, such as young people who want to get on with life—to use the new access routes that we are creating. I agree that because the routes are new, it is important that they are communicated clearly and regularly, so that people are not in any doubt. Regular public information will be important as we enter a phase in which the numbers of cases rise. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), I would not want us to place undue burdens on the service in asking it to churn or crank out statistics when it should be doing other things, but public information is very important in such a situation. I take very seriously what my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) said, and I shall see what is the appropriate level of information to put out regularly.

Iain Duncan Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I ask for your clarification, because, yesterday, we heard a Minister from the other place on broadcasts such as the "Today" programme, in particular, making a very clear announcement—I know, because I have checked the transcripts—that the Government were essentially going to nationalise the company running the east coast main line franchise. The announcement was made on two or three occasions; it was raised in the House yesterday; and Mr. Speaker was somewhat misdirected, although he was prepared to be corrected in the sense that he was not aware of that. I have handed him the transcript and a request that he now make a statement about it. Today, however, we did not hear anything.
	Are you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, aware of whether Mr. Speaker has now reached any conclusions about this matter, and whether he plans to make any statement at all about the Government's disgraceful behaviour in not coming to this House until very late in the evening—after most people had gone? The other place heard a statement much earlier, and we had an indication from a Minister on a broadcast that some very important act was taking place, but this House was literally the last place in Britain to hear about it.

Barry Sheerman: We did so peripherally, mostly in terms of children who turn up in this country with no obvious parents and are in care because of that. One of the other skills of a Select Committee is to determine where to draw the line, otherwise the inquiry would never get finished. Often, when one is doing a good inquiry and really getting under the skin of the issue, that leads to the next inquiry, so my right hon. Friend should not give up hope—we might get there.
	When one looks at the care of children in this country, one see that so much always comes back to the quality of the work force and how they are recruited, trained, paid and supported. That is absolutely central to the level and quality of care that is given. As we went on, it became obvious that we had to undertake an inquiry, which we are now doing, on the training of social workers. The two reports will go very well together. My right hon. Friend will know all about that process from his own Select Committee; it is part of the technique. That is how we conducted ourselves, and that is how we wrote, I think, a good and positive report.
	When the Committee has taken all its evidence and made all its visits, we have to spend considerable time coming up with a report that we think someone will listen to and will make the difference that we hoped it would. Part of the process is ensuring that the Government listen to what we say—and it is a remarkable opportunity to be here on the Floor of the House being able to debate and discuss the report that we produced. Of course, another part of our role is to tell the outside world, through the media, what our conclusions were on the matter and what changes we want in Government policy. There is no point in producing a report that is put on the shelf, gathers dust and makes no difference to the children in our country.
	Let me allude to some figures. In England, there are at any one time about 60,000 children in care, and in the course of a year about 90,000 children will go through care. One can immediately see the difficulties that we face. It is an unstable population. Some children go into care early and stay for a long time—perhaps for all their childhood—while many do so very late having been greatly damaged by their experience in their birth family. There is sometimes an easy perception that England does a poor job in terms of corporate parenting. We found early on in the process of learning the lessons that a high percentage of children who go into care do so very damaged and quite late. Extrapolating the statistics, we found that children in care perform badly in GCSEs and other examinations and in going on to higher education. As one hears the evidence, one does not wonder why that is, because it is clear that many of these children have not been supported in their education; indeed, they have not been sent to school. They have had such a turmoil of a life that going into corporate care is an attempt to bring the shattered pieces together and rebuild it. That is very difficult to do in the case of a child who goes into care at age 13 or 14; I think that some of my colleagues who have worked in the sector will endorse that.
	We have to be extremely careful about laying blame and saying that what local authorities and the Government do is much worse than what anybody else does. I do not believe that that is true. This is very difficult area to work in. The churn—the movement in and out of care and the resulting instability in children's lives—is at the heart of our concerns.

Barry Sheerman: That is the danger of letting a real expert intervene on one's speech. Of course, my hon. Friend is right—that is one of the real strains in a child's life.
	We found that as far as possible we want, of course, to keep families together. The most important work in our country is done by social workers and other people in the social care field in maintaining families in a good state. We looked at projects in places such as Morden, one of the London boroughs, where there is an excellent family support unit. Its job is to identify a family in trouble, with stresses and strains within it that had come to people's attention through a GP, a social worker or a health visitor; or it could have come many other means. One of the jobs of a local authority is to keep good antennae on identifying where children and families are in that stressed state. In areas with good practice, we saw that where a family was deemed to be in need of support, in came that support. The whole Committee was very impressed by the Morden experience, where an all-singing, all-dancing support team would go in to support the family for six months, see if it could get them back on the right road, and then step back and let them get on with their own lives. Then, if it did not work, the team could do it again. The general point is that good social work support is essential; if it can support the family and the child in the family, that must, in many cases, be the right route.
	We found that the most difficult aspect of all this is the decision on when to take a child into care and striking the balance in deciding whether that child is better off in a rather dysfunctional family, perhaps with a history of mental illness or drug or alcohol addiction. A large number of families have serious problems, but that does not mean they cannot maintain a family life of some quality. It is a question of identifying the problem and then supporting the family, but at a certain stage making the decision. When we compared our experience with that of Denmark, we found—certainly this was my perception as Chair of the Committee—that what was being done in Denmark seemed to lead to a better reputation for the social work process. It seemed from the evidence we took and our experience in Denmark that people did not consider it the end of the world for their children go into some form of care; it was seen as a reasonably positive thing. We talked to families and experts and found that, in certain care situations, a good relationship with the birth family was maintained. The family would visit, even if there was a background of abuse, including sexual abuse. That relationship was maintained, and many families felt that it was right for their child to be in that situation. They valued the fact that they still had access and that that loving relationship could continue.
	When we took evidence from children who had been in care, one strong voice was that of children who said that they did not want a substitute family. Some quite liked the family that they had, and had the type of loving relationship that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) mentioned. Perhaps others had had too much struggle, strife and stress from the family that they had come from and did not want to try another one. Some children in that situation said that they would prefer some form of residential care.
	We found that in this country there is a history of saying, "No, no, no" to residential care, because there has been a background of large-scale residential care and there was a period in which evidence of widespread child abuse came to light. Now it is very difficult to persuade people that residential care is appropriate. In Denmark, we saw small units of not more than 12 or 14 children, which had a good atmosphere and came close to recreating a family relationship, but a caring one. They were open to parents and visitors.

Barry Sheerman: My hon. Friend knows that I will agree, and I was just going to come to that.
	Any parliamentarian has to face the fact that, as we want to get the best level of child protection we can—it should be as good in every local authority as it is in the best—we must have better systems. Ofsted must be better, as must leadership and the sharing of best practice, to ensure we protect every child as best we humanly can. I feel that very strongly. We must balance that consideration with the danger that, after a tragic death, all the resources are rushed into child protection, which can starve resources for the support of families and good-quality social work. That is an interesting tension.
	The Committee said in our report, I suppose quite dramatically, that we do not believe we will ever eradicate child murder. However, really high-quality care can substantially reduce child misery. A problem that we can never really resolve is finding out to what degree a child is in misery and living a blighted life without society being able to identify that miserableness—is that the right word?

Barry Sheerman: The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. He has also pulled me up on my figures. I should tell him that he has read that part of our report more recently than I have—that report is three reports away in this poor brain of mine, but I thank him for his intervention. He is probably quite right about getting external valuation, but in a sense that is what we try to do as a Select Committee by going somewhere that we think has good practice. Some of the things that we saw informed our report and we made some strong points.

David Laws: I wonder whether I gave way to the hon. Gentleman too early; my generosity overcame me. I should have asked him to hold off for a few seconds while I made another couple of points that were highlighted by the Select Committee's report.
	Although, by definition, it would be astonishing if the performance of these young people was better than the average for the rest of the population, the principal issue we need to address is whether the outcomes are good enough, and whether more could be done for them. The striking conclusion of the report, placed prominently at the beginning of the summary, is important enough to be read into the record:
	"Despite the dedication and perseverance of social workers and carers, the outcomes and experiences of young people who have been 'looked after' remain poor. Far from compensating for their often extremely difficult pre-care experiences, certain features of the care system itself in fact make it harder for young people to succeed: they are moved frequently and often suddenly, miss too much schooling, and are left to fend for themselves at too early an age."
	Those are the legitimate concerns that the hon. Gentleman rightly raises, and I believe that we could and should be doing far better as a country in addressing those young people's needs.
	My experience as a constituency MP with this segment of the population—the 60,000 young people, a large number of whom are in care—tally very much with the report's conclusions and with the principal areas of concern that the hon. Gentleman set out in his speech a few moments ago. Those are the issues that I would like to touch on today. My concerns fall into four categories.
	The first relates to judgments about when and in what circumstances young people should go into care—an issue of some controversy to which I shall return, and I expect that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) will want to comment on it later if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am concerned about whether we always make the right judgments about when young people should be removed from what are often very chaotic home environments and taken into care.
	The second category relates to the quality of the care provided. The Select Committee has highlighted some weaknesses in our existing system and some experiences in other countries that we could learn from. Too often there is a shortage of placements or their quality is not good. Thirdly, there are concerns about the services available—educational and those provided by our social services departments—to young people in care.
	Finally, there are crucial issues, which the hon. Member for Huddersfield raised towards the end of his speech, about the support provided for young people beyond the age of 16, 18 or even 21. His comments obviously tally very much with what is in the report, but also with my experience of the problems experienced by this cohort of youngsters when they leave care—long-term drug and mental health problems, housing difficulties and problems gaining employment, for example. I shall touch briefly on all those issues.
	I appreciate that no simple conclusion can be derived about the tendency to be either reluctant or very precipitate about when people should be taken into care. It is clear that experiences vary significantly across the country and that different judgments are made in different areas. The hon. Member for Huddersfield was concerned about the significantly different approaches to the thresholds used to take people into care in different parts of the country. Another concluding point in the report was:
	"Large variations in care populations around the country seem to indicate that there is no consensus about the role of care in services for vulnerable children. We are convinced that in some respects the potential of the care system to make a positive difference to children's lives is dismissed too readily, but we are also concerned by how widely the quality of children's experiences in care varies, and how uneven are the experiences".
	My own experiences as a constituency MP have confirmed the understandable reluctance to take young people away from their parents and into care; we all recognise that. Sometimes, however, there is a failure to appreciate the truly chaotic, frightening and neglectful circumstances that many young people experience in the home environment. We would all like to keep as many young people as possible with their parents—that will always be true for the overwhelming majority—but sadly, some young people are brought up in deeply uncaring and unloving circumstances. That is sometimes because their own parents were brought up in the same environment, do not have parenting skills and did not receive a good example of how to discharge parental responsibilities from their own parents. The more serious cases involve direct abuse rather than simply neglect.
	What is needed is a willingness to acknowledge that, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield pointed out, for this minority of young people a high-quality care system —if we can create it—may well be a better option than any of the options that tend to be available in a home environment. As the Select Committee has observed, there is a reluctance to put young people into care, not just because of a shortage of places, but sometimes because of the financial consequences, or even because of an almost ideological belief that the best possible outcome is for children to remain with their parents. I think the most important point made in the Committee's report is that the home environment is not always the best environment for young people.
	The second issue that I want to raise is the quality of care and placements. As the hon. Member for Huddersfield said, placements with individuals who have a real commitment to and passion for young people, and who are willing to provide them with security for many years, are in very short supply. Many of the placements available are not of the quality that we would want to see. When we meet people who were in care as children, we tend to find that they experienced a large number of placements and a great deal of instability during a period when the state, or local authorities, should have been responsible for their care. It is not surprising that some individuals are reluctant to place young people in care if they fear that it will not provide the love and stability that those young people need if they are to thrive.
	We must be more imaginative. We must study the experiences of those in other countries in order to establish whether we can create settings that provide the stability described by the hon. Member for Huddersfield. They may have to contain a number of other youngsters, although I was surprised by the hon. Gentleman's reference to the large number of young people in settings in countries such as Denmark—11, 12, 14 or 15. I should have thought that the number of children in multiple settings ought to be very much lower.
	We must ensure that the quality of the social workers who support young people and their families is high, and that they experience consistency and stability. The hon. Member for Huddersfield spoke of a rapid turnover of social workers and of multiple contacts. It is not surprising that young people who may have had very unpleasant experiences in the home environment before being taken into care, and who feel unloved and unsupported, will also feel that society is not resolving their problems and giving them the stability that they need if a multiplicity of individuals are responsible for their care in the new home setting, or if a multiplicity of social workers causes relationships to be repeatedly forged and then broken. Those who experience a multiplicity of both social workers and home environments will feel that no one remains committed to them as individuals, and that no one can create the confidence and belief in their own importance and value that they will need if they are to thrive in society.
	The third issue that concerns me—the hon. Member for Huddersfield mentioned it as well—is education. In general, the educational performance of children in care has been, and still is, extremely poor. Although it has improved slightly over the past five to 10 years, it is still well below average. We need a better system of funding to target disadvantage throughout the education system.
	I was pleased to see in the education White Paper the other day a reference to our proposal for a pupil premium to direct additional money towards youngsters with high levels of disadvantage and deprivation. The children whom we are discussing would clearly have the strongest claim of almost any group of youngsters for a particularly high premium to ensure that the educational establishments that they attend have the necessary resources to deliver not only the additional educational support and catch-up that they may require, but the wider support that will enable them to thrive in a school environment. I hope that if the Government seriously intend to pursue the idea of a pupil premium, they will consider that idea carefully as the review of the funding formula concludes early in 2010, and before they announce their final decisions.
	There have been some useful experiences recently in an attempt to tackle one of the problems mentioned by the hon. Member for Huddersfield: the fact that young people are frequently moved between different local authority areas, and also—although the hon. Gentleman did not mention this explicitly—between different educational establishments. That can prove extremely disruptive. A number of local authorities have pursued effectively the idea of a "virtual head teacher" with overarching responsibility for children in care, who would follow their progress to ensure that their educational needs were met and that their support remained consistent even when, regrettably, they had to move from one local authority area to another.
	A particularly crucial question, and one that it is easy to neglect, is what happens to youngsters after they leave their care settings, often at the age of 16, but sometimes later. I share the surprise and dissatisfaction expressed by the hon. Member for Huddersfield at the frequent absence of a follow-through system of care. I am amazed at the lack of support for young people: the failure to secure appropriate housing, the lack of ongoing support for those with mental health and drug abuse problems, and the lack of assistance for those who wish to become employed.
	As the hon. Member for Huddersfield said, one reason for our problems with children in care is that many enter the system late in the day. Not all of them have been in care and receiving support for a decade or more; some have experienced a chaotic and unstable set of circumstances, and have not gone into care until their mid or late teens. The assumption that they will be in a position to fend for themselves, to secure employment and to manage their own housing arrangements simply because they have reached the age of adulthood—whether that is deemed to be 16 or 18—is deeply flawed. In theory the system is supposed to provide an additional measure of support beyond the age of 16 or 18, but in practice that happens all too rarely.
	Let me end by saying that I have welcomed the opportunity to debate the Select Committee's report.

Keith Vaz: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws). I begin by paying tribute to the Select Committee for its excellent report. It is literally a weighty report. If we were to weigh Select Committee reports, I am sure we would find that it was the weightiest of last year. The Committee seems to have begun its deliberations in March 2008, a long time ago. I pay tribute to all the members who participated. I only wish when we had Home Affairs Committee debates that quite so many Committee members turned up. Perhaps this is the template for other Select Committees. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor), the hon. Members for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes), for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart), and my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman)— [ Interruption. ] Yes, my hon. Friends the Members for Halton (Derek Twigg) and for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) have left the Chamber, but all those Members were all here, and I am very impressed by that.
	I feel as if I am straying on to the territory of another Select Committee so I will be very brief. There is really only one aspect of policy that I wish to bring to the attention of the House. The Committee Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, enjoyed the report so much and is ready to be tempted to look at other aspects of policy concerning looked-after children. I wonder whether his Committee might look at the issue of children in care who are here as a result of human trafficking—children brought here for the specific purpose of exploitation by human traffickers, who arrive at children's homes and disappear to carry on and involve themselves in criminal activities.

David Chaytor: I congratulate the Opposition, but I also congratulate the Government on eventually finding time for this debate. Of course, it builds on the significant improvement in Government policy in recent years, which has moved the interests of looked-after children much further up the political agenda.
	These children are often the poorest of the poor. They and their families are at the bottom of the pile. In contrast with most children, whose interests, welfare, health and education are universally popular among the population at large, looked-after children, especially when they reach their teenage years, are frequently reviled, stigmatised, discriminated against and scapegoated by the adult population. That is the fact of the matter. It shows the difficulty that we have—as local authorities, health authorities and Governments—in re-establishing this group as victims.
	The figures are quite stark. Other Members have mentioned some of the statistics, and still only 14 per cent. of looked-after children gain five A to Cs at GCSE. Among the population as a whole, that figure is 65 per cent. Only 46 per cent. of looked-after children get past key stage 2 level 4 in English, compared with 81 per cent. of the population. The most striking figure, of which I was only reminded earlier today, is that whereas in the population as a whole 3 per cent. of children have statements, 28 per cent. of looked-after children have statements; the figure is nine times higher in that group of young people.
	Let me mention two brief anecdotes that seem to me to encapsulate some of the difficulties experienced by these young people, and perhaps how the state's approach has changed. One of my earliest and most enjoyable experiences as an MP in my constituency was an awards evening for looked-after children in Bury. The children and their families were invited to the town hall for a wonderful party and celebration of their achievements organised by the then director of education. Every child received recognition in some shape or form, whether they were on their way to university and celebrating their A-level results or whether they had very modest achievements. The evening culminated in music, dance, a disco and plenty of food and drink for the children, their families and the teachers and support workers who had worked with them.
	I vividly remember one of the most outgoing of those children, a young woman, partly Afro-Caribbean, who came to talk to me about Members of Parliament, Prime Minister's questions and Tony Blair. She had watched Prime Minister's questions on the television and wanted to know what it was like. I thought, "What an amazing young woman. She's come through the most difficult experiences—moved around from foster family to foster family—yet she still has, at the age of 14 or 15, this high degree of optimism. She will probably survive and have an interesting future."
	Four or five years later, that young woman came to my advice surgery, heavily pregnant, dressed in a way that could only be described as eccentric, clearly under the influence of some substance and clearly with mental health problems. She came to ask me for assistance, but did not quite know what assistance she needed. She came also to complain about social workers, but was not quite able to put her finger on the source of the complaint. She wanted to complain about the national health service, but was not able to explain where it was not dealing with her needs. Her experience over the four or five years between the age of 14 and the age of 18 or 19 seemed to me to be almost a metaphor for the way in which the state had failed so many young people in care.
	My second brief anecdote concerns an experience the Committee had when we were compiling the report. We met, in the Jubilee Room, a group of young people in care who had come to tell us about their experiences. They provided informal evidence to our Committee and they were incredibly resilient, confident and outgoing young people. They were older; they were aged 18, 19, 20 and 21. We listened carefully to what they had to say.
	There was one thing that I occurred to me as we spoke to them—and I reiterate the comments made by the hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) about the importance of listening to children. I found it remarkable how astute they were about how their experience had gone wrong, pointing out the awfulness of the instability of not having a regular social worker and of frequent moves from one foster family or care home to another. They demonstrated that, in spite of that, with the right kind of support—they had all had significant support from voluntary organisations and charities, and particularly from committed individuals—children in care can come through and can survive. In their late teens and early 20s, those young people seemed to be getting their lives together. The message of that second experience was positive, because attitudes and policies have changed in the past few years. The result is that young people in care get a slightly higher priority and a slightly better share of the cake.
	One reflection of that is the document published in May by the Department for Children, Schools and Families which tackled head-on the need to improve educational attainment in schools. I very much welcome the proposals that every local authority should have a virtual head for looked-after children, and that every school should have a designated teacher for them. Other proposals include ensuring that all looked-after children have a personal education plan and get the one-two-one and small-group tuition that are so important for those who are vulnerable and uncertain about their relationships, and who find it difficult to cope in larger numbers.
	I welcome the fact that the Government have already introduced the £500 educational allowance pledge. It is not yet clear how that is working or exactly who is responsible for allocating the money, but it is crucial if we are to give looked-after young people the benefits, advantages and extra-curricular activities that are taken as read by most average families in this country. Above all, I welcome the changes in the most recent code on school admissions, which prioritise the needs of looked-after children and are central to giving their schooling greater stability. The Government's track record, in recent times and in that latest document, shows that they are moving very much in the right direction.
	However, education is only part of the issue. As I and other hon. Members have noted, the stability of placements and the continuity of social workers are crucial. In this country, we have had problems with both foster and residential care. As often happens in public policy, the pendulum swings from side to side according to fashion.
	The Committee looked at what happens in other countries, and at the variable experience in different parts of the UK. It seemed to us that there is no perfect or agreed model for what goes on, and that there should be no targets for the numbers of children to be placed in or removed from residential care. Both foster and residential care can be provided in a way that is absolutely suitable to children's needs, so we need to look at the matter as a spectrum rather than as an either/or problem.
	In our inquiry, the Committee saw some very good examples of residential care, although not in the UK. Sadly, we had to go to Denmark to see them, but that does not mean that we cannot reach the same standards here. I know that there has been dramatic change in the UK in recent years; the old large and impersonal children's homes have been dismantled, while smaller units with a more family-oriented atmosphere and approach have been developed. That is all for the good, but let us not say that there is a unique model that must be applied in all circumstances. We need a continuum of care as well as flexibility, so we should not try rigidly to impose any particular model according to the fashion of the day.
	Underlying many of the criticisms of some aspects of foster care—and certainly of residential care—is the question of how we recruit people to the wider children's work force. We know that, as a nation, we have a problem with the low status allocated to staff working in pre-school settings, residential homes or children's social work. The only conclusion to be drawn is that, if we give such jobs low status—as a profession, or in respect of the opportunities for progression, the qualifications required for entry or pay and remuneration—it is because we as a nation do not recognise sufficiently the importance of the health, care and welfare of children.
	Other countries in Europe are, frankly, light years ahead of us. Until we can put the interests of children absolutely at the heart of public policy and reflect that by ensuring that some of the brightest, best qualified and most highly motivated young adults want to work with children, we will never bring about the cultural change that we need. The Chairman of the Committee has already pointed out that we felt that that was such an important part of our inquiry that it has led to a further inquiry specifically on the training of social workers that will also produce some interesting recommendations.
	The selection of not just children's social workers but people who work in residential care settings should be considered. My recollection is that our inquiry was quite specific: we felt that anyone working in a residential care setting should require a level 3 national vocational qualification. There is much work to do, perhaps more formally, in improving the training and support available to those who take on the role of foster carer.
	I want to make two further comments, the first of which is about the whole question of leaving care, on which hon. Members have commented. One of the biggest gaps in our provision even now is that so many children leave their care setting too early. They finish up on the streets. They finish up sucked into crime, drugs and prostitution. They finish up becoming disoriented and living in inappropriate housing, next to inappropriate neighbours. The Government are greatly interested in that at the moment. Many of the charities that work in the field are calling for a national housing standard for care leavers.
	I want to compare—I do not think that this comparison has been made before—the way in which we as a nation consider housing for young people in care with how we consider housing for undergraduates. Every young person who goes to university has the opportunity to stay in a university hall of residence—not absolute luxury, but basic, clean, comfortable, sheltered, protected and regulated accommodation. If we can look after the interests of the 43 per cent. of young people who go to university by offering them appropriate housing with regulated standards, why cannot we support the interests of the much smaller group of young people who are in care with the same kind of standards for their housing when they move to adulthood? So the contrast between the accommodation that many 16, 17 and 18-year-olds live in, often by themselves and next door to some pretty unpleasant adults, and the environment in which our university undergraduates live, in their halls of residence, is absolutely striking.
	With the Every Child Matters agenda and the proposals made in the "Care Matters" White Paper two years ago, we have brought about impressive integration in children's services. Certainly, social care and schools are working far more closely together than ever before, but there are two gaps. I am deeply concerned about whether the health service fully recognises the difficulties of looked-after children as a category. I am not absolutely convinced that GPs—obviously, GPs are enormously variable—are fully locked into the Every Child Matters agenda. It seems to me from my experience and from listening to some of the evidence given to the Select Committee that GPs are still protecting their professional practices and less willing than other professionals to co-operate with regard to the interests of children.
	I was interested in the very important point about child trafficking made by the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. I also flag up the importance of policing. I had the interesting experience two years ago of spending some time with Greater Manchester police, touring the various towns of Greater Manchester at different times of the day and seeing a remarkable number of young people—it was impossible to say whether or not they were looked-after children—drifting and hanging around in the most unusual places and getting up to the most appalling activities at all hours of the day and night. Many of them would have been children who had been in care, but I do not think that the police have yet understood the importance of having a slightly different response where that is the case. To reiterate a point on the important issue of children who are trafficked, I point out that if there is to be a joint inquiry by the Children, Schools and Families Committee and the Home Affairs Committee, it would be fruitful to explore the relationship between the criminal justice system and looked-after children.
	Finally, I hope that the report will lead to more than just short-term improvements. So much of our history of responding to issues related to looked-after children, child abuse and the murder of children has been a history of knee-jerk responses. An incident happens, the public are outraged, the Government respond and then we forget about it. I hope that we have moved on from those days, and that the report's influence on Government policy can be much longer-lasting. Our Government are starting to take the issues far more seriously than any Government have done for many years. I welcome the progress made in recent years.

Paul Holmes: I should like to start by praising the work of Select Committees, although perhaps that is slightly self-indulgent, as I am a member of the Children, Schools and Families Committee. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), who chairs the Committee, touched on the subject slightly, but did not go into too much detail in order to spare his blushes. Recently, a national newspaper looked at the work of Select Committees and praised three in particular, including the Education and Skills Committee, now the Children, Schools and Families Committee, and its Chairman. That highlighted the very effective work that Select Committees, and three of them in particular, have done in recent years.
	The Select Committee is a good model; it has worked very well since the big expansion of Select Committees in 1979. There has been talk of reforming the way in which this place works to make the job of scrutinising the Executive more effective. Hopefully the expansion of the role and powers of Select Committees is one of the measures that will be taken in the next year or so. It will mean that 30 years on from the '79 expansion and experiment, there will be a further expansion of the work of Select Committees. The Select Committee report that we are considering is a good example of what Select Committees can do so well.
	A number of hon. Members referred to the fact that in a normal family situation—whatever "normal" is—children do not, at the age of 16, 18 or 21, leave and never again have contact with their siblings, parents, uncles and so on. In fact, it is the norm for people to get a lot of support from their family system until they are well into their 20s, and even later. A lot of the latest stories are of children going away to university, getting jobs, getting their own place, and ending up back in the family home in their early 30s. I am a parent of three children, the eldest of whom is 24. She lives close by, but she is often not in her flat but at home, emptying the contents of my fridge, drinking my drink, watching my TV and so forth. Of course, we are always delighted to see our adult children; we are pleased that they come back to see us. That ongoing support is the norm.
	When considering the model for that strange creature, the corporate parent—the state as parent—we should very much bear in mind what the model is for a normal family. The state as parent takes on responsibility for children who come into care because they come from very abnormal family backgrounds. Some 62 per cent. of children in care have been taken into care because of direct neglect and abuse by their family. A large percentage of the other 38 per cent. of children come into care because of family dysfunction, severe illness or death in the family. They come into care because they come from the opposite of a "normal" family and family background. They have already had a traumatic experience in their life. Whether they come into care at four or 14, they have already had a difficult upbringing.
	If the state as parent is to discharge its parental duties to looked-after children, it has to run twice as fast simply to stand still. It has a moral duty to discharge those responsibilities to the best effect, and there is common, human sense in its seeking to do so. However, if we had to make a hard-nosed case to the Treasury, we could cite the pure economic sense behind it, too. The cost of not helping looked-after children—the cost of social breakdown, the cost of substance abuse, the cost of mental illness, the cost of the fact that half of prisoners under 25 years old and up to one third of prisoners of all ages have been in care, and the cost of picking up the pieces from that failure—is far greater than the cost of investing in and looking after them properly in the first place. There is an obvious moral case for discharging that duty properly, but one can make a hard-nosed economic case in Treasury terms, too.
	I am sure that the Minister, in her response to the debate, will say that much progress has been made. Indeed, the Government, in their published response to the Committee's report, agree with most of its findings and point out how they are making progress towards its objectives. They deserve praise for the progress that has been made, but we have an awful long way to go if we are to emulate what the Committee saw as the best systems in other areas. Denmark is the one that everybody has mentioned.
	The point at which one leaves care has been exhaustively discussed, so I shall not go into it, but is it 16 years old, 18, 21 or 25? It was quite shocking to hear one social worker who came to talk to the Committee two Mondays ago say that, in her authority, there was pressure not to go into any permanent arrangements or accommodation arrangements with 15-year-olds, because they are only a few months away from no longer being the authority's responsibility. The idea that 15 to 16-year-olds are already being cast adrift is outrageous. There are welcome moves to extend the leaving age, but surely it should be extended beyond 17 or 18 years old.
	Accommodation provision for young adults of 16, 17 and 18 years old is also an issue. The Government, in their response, talk about bed and breakfast being provided for somebody in that situation, and that is not suitable. Councils are now being told that they should give looked-after children priority for housing, but we keep being told that they should give many other groups priority, so we need to look at the issue of joined-up government thinking, because Government policy for the past 12 years has been not to allow council house building at all.
	Just over 4,000 council houses have been built in 12 years, and that is meaningless. The housing associations that were supposed to fill the gap have, on average, built 22,000 units of social housing per year for 12 years, when the Government's own Barker report said that 46,000 to 50,000 units were needed just to stand still—without even reducing the waiting list. Furthermore, the waiting list for social housing in general and council housing in particular has doubled nationally: it has gone up from 1 million in 1997 to almost 2 million now.
	How do councils give priority to people leaving the armed forces or looked-after children who are moving into independent accommodation? How do they give priority when their supply of social housing is totally inadequate to meet the needs of all groups—families, people with children and single mothers. Whatever the category, the massive shortage of social housing and council housing cannot meet those needs.
	I can think of examples in my constituency. I presented GCSE awards at a school a few years ago, and one girl won prizes for her fantastic GCSE artwork. Indeed, one of her paintings hangs in my office here in Westminster now. She succeeded at school despite a very difficult family background and having been in care, but at 16 years old she was about to leave school, start college and move into a council flat in one of the least desirable areas of Chesterfield. How would that 16-year-old girl get on as a young, single person, living on whatever benefits were provided, on her own, while trying to pursue her education, without the normal family support that we would expect for our children? We still have a long way to go if we are to move beyond that situation.
	I was a teacher for 22 years, so education is dear to my heart. When I was head of year and responsible for children's pastoral care, I noticed that some children would turn up in school, be around for a couple of months and then move on; they just kept moving on from their foster care placements, or whatever arrangements had been made. Years later, we heard about exactly the same thing from the children who gave evidence to the inquiry—about children who were constantly in a state of flux and moving from one place to another. The situation might be due to the difficulties in recruiting enough foster parents. That issue needs tackling, as the report says, but there might be all sorts of other reasons why such children are moving around.
	The norm in education should always be that the young person stays in their school place. That should be a priority; it is much better than their being shuffled around to a convenient place somewhere within a radius of 20 or 30 miles, which means that they keep changing school. The stability of a child's education is essential to any success that they have in exams, literacy or numeracy.
	The hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) said that placing looked-after children into academies with residential places might be an answer. He may want to respond, but I should say to him that I am puzzled by that. When academies were launched, the whole concept behind them was supposed to be that they would replace failing schools, which are almost entirely in deprived areas in the inner cities. Surely the best thing for looked-after children, who come from already difficult circumstances, is for them to be given priority for school places in the best, most successful schools—not in the academies, which take over, in theory, from failing schools in the most difficult circumstances. It would be good to see priority given to giving looked-after children the best places in the best schools.

Paul Holmes: I regret the fact that boarding provision in state schools was more or less wiped out during my years of working in schools. There were, for example, two state schools in Derbyshire with boarding provision, one of which I worked at. One had disappeared before I started working at that school and the other disappeared a few years later. There is no state school with boarding provision in Derbyshire now. That is regrettable, and a move back in the other direction would be useful.
	However, I disagree with the idea that provision for looked-after children should be linked only to academies, which make up a tiny percentage of the 3,000 secondary schools in this country. As I said, the jury is out on academy schools; at least a third have had worse results since they became academies. We do not want to pin all our hopes on a totally untried and minority experiment. There are questions about providing enough support for looked-after children who have come from such difficult backgrounds given the numbers of staff available. Having worked in education for a long time, I know about the difficulty of getting access to educational psychologists, for example. In Denmark, there were incredibly well-paid, motivated, intelligent, enthusiastic child psychologists in more or less every meeting we went to, and they provide a great service. In this country, they are as rare as hen's teeth.
	We have already heard reference to the question of whether an NVQ level 3 should be a minimum requirement for somebody working in a residential setting. The qualifications and pay of social workers are relevant issues, and the Committee is undertaking an inquiry into their training and qualifications. If we are to take this seriously, we may need to emulate many other countries across western Europe that do this so much better.
	The major unanswered question that came out of the Committee's report and still hangs there, perhaps for a future inquiry, is the balance between adoption, fostering or residential settings as the desired way of dealing with children who go into care, and what ratios there should be between those options. There are big differences between countries in how they approach this and, as we heard from the Chair of the Committee, between local authorities in Britain. Adoption is seen as one route, much more so in this country than in Denmark, where people were desperate to avoid any adoptions because they wanted to maintain the family link for as long as possible, if not for ever. They take a completely different attitude.
	On fostering, we heard evidence from several young people who, between them, had very long experience of the care system. There was some evidence of good things, but one of them told an alarming story, which was backed up by another, of being in a foster placement where the foster carer regarded it simply as a way of earning money. When there was a Christmas or birthday party, the foster child was not allowed to take part in that family event. There was a shocking example of a foster child having a separate mug in the kitchen because they could not use the family crockery. It seemed appalling that a foster carer was allowed to do that. I must emphasise that those examples are very untypical—at least, I hope so. My wife worked in social services for a long time and undertook a lot of approvals of foster parents and adoptive parents in Derbyshire. I got to know many of them in that way; some are still friends now. I have certainly never come across an example like that in Derbyshire, as an individual through my wife's work or as a politician. It was shocking to hear, only a few months ago when we were taking evidence, that those things were happening. We need to look at the standards and requirements for foster care placements across the country.
	On residential settings, the old, large, crumbling Victorian institution housing large numbers of children is very much a thing of the past. We saw some good examples in Denmark, but to be fair we saw some in England too, when we visited places just outside London. The nearest residential care home in Chesterfield, which is about a quarter of a mile up the road from where I live, is a modern house that has no more than six people at any one time. That is very much the direction in which residential settings have gone in this country, although there is still progress to be made. Another question raised by the Committee and left hanging is the point at which we intervene, initiate care proceedings, send children back to their families, and so forth. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), who is hoping to speak shortly, might disagree with me about this. I am not saying what I would prefer, merely that these are huge questions raised by the Committee's report. In Denmark, the key appeared to be the desire to maintain the family link, even when the child was taken into care. We were surprised to hear—the Chair referred to this example—about a child who was in care because he had been sexually abused by one of his parents, yet those parents were still invited along to birthday, Christmas and end-of-school events to maintain a link with the child, whereas in this country we would tend to cut that link quite sharply. It was suggested that that was one of the main reasons for the success of the Danish system.
	We should not cherry-pick when we look at different ways of doing things in other countries; we have to look at the whole picture. In Denmark, we saw not only that emphasis on trying to maintain the family link at all costs, but an emphasis on intervening much earlier, with twice as many children per head of population being taken into care than in the UK. Denmark has the highest rate in Europe of taking children into care, so there is a different approach altogether. We saw that all people involved in child care were much more highly trained and paid than those in this country, so the whole system was very different. We should examine the pattern rather than pick out one of four or five matters that were different.
	We have heard arguments about whether we are too slow to intervene in this country. When the Committee extended its inquiry because of the baby P case, Andrew Flanagan, chief executive of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said that children were being left in danger at home. Wes Cuell, the NSPCC's director of children services, said that children
	"stay in dangerous families and end up getting killed."
	An Ofsted review reported that thousands of vulnerable children were at risk because councils did not move fast enough to protect them.
	Some of the social workers who talked to us said something that I have also heard in years gone by from my wife and her colleagues—that we take too far the approach that families must always be kept together. It was suggested in the inquiry into the baby P case that the emphasis was on the mother's needs and how we could support her, and that we lost sight of baby P. Whether we intervene too late is a huge question that has been left hanging in the air by the baby P inquiry, the Select Committee's report and the evidence from bodies such as the NSPCC and Ofsted.
	Educational outcomes were referred to earlier. It has been said that looked-after children get a much worse educational outcome than an equivalent 16 or 18-year-old who has had a normal family background and education. A comparison was made with Germany a couple of years ago, but because Germany intervenes sooner, and for a larger number of people, the sample is not comparable. We intervene late and for a smaller, hardcore sample of more damaged and more vulnerable children. Inevitably, their outcomes of any kind, whether alcohol abuse, educational success or mental illness, will be worse than in a larger, more normal sample of children.
	A big question has been left hanging in the air. I certainly do not expect the Minister to answer it in 30 seconds, as it probably needs a whole new Select Committee inquiry and a national debate. It is whether we intervene too late and whether we put too much emphasis on keeping children with their family at all costs, even when the cost can be death and damage to children that could have been avoided by earlier intervention, as Ofsted and the NSPCC have argued.

John Hemming: One of the interesting aspects of this subject is definitions. Take the definition of care. A child is "in care" when there is a care order in place, but even then, that child may be placed with their parents. The fact that there has been an intervention, and maybe an early one, does not necessarily mean that it is a stressful intervention with a child being put with a foster carer some distance away. We should look systematically at how families are supported, and organisations such as Home-Start are very good for that.
	When we compare difficult countries, it is critical that we get our definitions right, otherwise it is unclear what is going on. We take into care, through care orders, about 7,000 to 8,000 children a year.

Meg Munn: I question what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I have tabled questions about research that may not have been done by the Government, but which was funded by them. A huge amount of research is done; my question is whether it is then disseminated. However, I could tell the hon. Gentleman at length—although obviously not today, Mr. Deputy Speaker—why certain things are done in the UK, such as the move to smaller children's homes. The reason is precisely because those initiatives are based on research.

John Hemming: My understanding is that the case is not before any court at the moment. Sebastian and his mother have been on the run for around 14 months. The father of the baby girl was jailed for 14 months, but has since been released. The family is on the run in Europe, yet Medway social services will not drop the complaint to the police and still wants the mother to be arrested under an international arrest warrant.
	I look at that case and I think, "What are the best interests of the child? What are we doing that could be of benefit to the child?" There are two children living with their mother on the run in France. One is not subject to the UK's jurisdiction because the child was born abroad and so cannot be taken away from the mother, but the other child could be taken away through proceedings under the Hague convention. What are the best interests of the child? Why does Medway want to continue the prosecution?
	There are cases where mothers have 14 babies on the trot, each one of which is taken into care and adopted. The cost of doing that is about £200,000 a child, which totals £2.8 million. That is not unique: there are a number of cases of people with 18 children, and I have seen smaller numbers, such as 12 or 10. However, is that really a good way of handling the care process? Would it not be feasible to try to support the mother in some way? I have looked at the detail of those cases, so I know what the reasoning behind them is, but is that really the best way forward? Does it work well? I was looking at a case on Monday, and it was clear from the papers that the child, who was about 12, wanted to return to her mother. There was no reason why she should not do so, but, according to the papers, she recognised that she could not return until she was 18.
	I accept that my proposition would not be the best way forward for all children, and that we need to intervene and take some children into care, and to put others with foster carers from time to time, but I tend to see the cases in which the system has gone wrong. The case of Sam and Adam Johnson is a good example of that. They are 15 and 17, and subject to a care order because they have fallen out with their mum and are prevented from living with their father. Sam has been able to go back now that he is 17. Essex county council has wasted a massive sum of money on that case. I talk to practitioners in Birmingham who say that they would never do that. Fair enough, but why did Essex county council do it? Initially, the local authority did not want to do it, but it was persuaded by the judge. Some very strange things go on, and unless we deal with them, the system will continue to steamroller people. At the moment it is steamrollering adults and children. Everyone here agrees that the outcomes of the system are disastrous.
	Obviously, there is good practice going on, but there is also bad practice. It is a good idea to have advocates for children, for example, but they must be independent. They cannot be appointed by children's services. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children does some very good advocacy work, and the reason why it is good is that the advocates are not appointed by the local authority. The people providing the services cannot also be the ones who appoint the advocates. To go back to the comparison with Denmark, it has been said that the best advocates are the child's natural parents, but we have a tendency to squeeze them out of the process. The figure of 7,000 to 8,000, based on SSDA903 returns, has been mentioned. Over half of the children under the age of 10 who go into care come out into adoption, according to the old figures. In 2004-05 the figure was about 3,800 a year.
	The system causes wrong decisions to be made in a material number of cases. It does not operate proper checks and balances. Now is not the time to go into the flaws in the family court system at great length, but the report is good in that it recognises the difficulties with the integrated children's system. I have written a report jointly with two social workers on why the integrated children's system causes social workers to remain in the office and make the wrong decisions because they cannot get out to see their clients. They are forced to feed their computers instead, and I am not convinced that the Government are doing enough to deal with that. People make the wrong decisions, the whole thing is driven through the system, ignoring realities at certain stages, and come hell or high water, they stick to the original decisions.
	There are social workers who agree with me that there are serious problems in the systems. In the family court system, for example, we find that the children and the parents are often trying to fight the professionals, which is not the way to achieve good child care and good outcomes for children. There are even cases involving 14 or 15-year-old children in which a guardian from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service is trying to interfere. There is no role for a guardian in such cases. CAFCASS is supposed to represent the interests of a child, and it is unclear why it should be anywhere near a case in which the child is clearly Gillick competent.
	One of my biggest concerns is the way in which mental capacity is abused. Rachel Pullen's case is quite well known. I also know of another case in which a woman failed an IQ test that she was given through an interpreter, resulting in a psychologist deciding that she did not have the mental capacity to instruct a solicitor. She was then prevented from opposing care proceedings. As in the Rachel Pullen case, a later psychologist's report found that she did have the necessary mental capacity. The second psychologist spoke the woman's language, which made a difference.
	Obviously, it is a bit of a waste of time asking Lord Laming whether he was right last time. We really need a proper investigation, and I am pleased that we are making some progress in the Council of Europe, whose legal affairs and human rights committee is to examine family justice in this country.
	The Government need to carry out proper research into how the care system operates and where it is systematically going wrong. We are lucky that, in a sense, there is a social science research experiment in the country as a whole, because we have the Scottish system and the English system. In Scotland babies go home to their parents; in England they are adopted. It is thus possible to make a comparison of how the systems are operating where people speak the same language and have quite similar legislation.
	I could speak at massive length about the issue, but there would be no great merit in doing so, and I want to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) to contribute to the debate. We are not looking sufficiently at where the problems are. Unless we really focus on where the wrong decisions are taken, and unless we have a system of checks and balances that operates in the best interests of the child rather than what is best for the people who make money out of dealing with children, we will not make progress.

Annette Brooke: I congratulate the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) on his leadership of the Select Committee, which brought this report about. I feel quite privileged to have played a small part in it myself, but the leadership is very important. When the report was published, it received considerable media attention—across a wide range of media—and I believe it was a good reflection on our society that this subject was news and that people wanted to reflect on it. I hope that only good will come out of it. I want briefly to address just a few issues and to push the Government a little further on their response.
	My first point is about the threshold for taking children into care. I agree with my hon. Friends that the report has left questions in the air in that respect—and rightly so, as these are really important questions. We know that there is a great variation across the country; we do not want to think that decisions are made on a cost basis, but we do not know. We know that since the baby Peter affair, there has been an enormous increase in the number of children taken into care, and we anticipate that as that incident fades into the back of people's minds, those numbers will diminish. We heard about the same experience—of rises and falls over time—in New York. That is not good enough; we need a balanced approach. I agree with the Government that local decision making and taking the right decision for each individual child is important, but there must be a national debate, which would also need to reflect in a deep way on international experience.
	I was quite alarmed when I saw an edition of  Children & Young People Now with the headline "Councils 'capping' care places". Further reading revealed an example of a county council that
	"has had 60 children in residential care every year from 2004 to 2008".
	There might be all sorts of reasons for that; there may be some rounding of the numbers, for example. I do not know, but that example raises questions, which need answering, about whether that council has a fixed number of places and draws the line there.
	I remember the introduction of quality protects and the concept of corporate parenting being introduced in 1997; there was some good stuff in that. However, as I read the Government's response, it seems to be saying, "All these statutory partners in the children's trusts will all become corporate parents," but corporate parenting means doing something as well as being something. I suspect that there is a major role for elected members to give real leadership within their local authorities. I would like to see some good practice publicised across the country, as I suspect some authorities do corporate parenting a lot better than others.
	I also want to reflect on health and well-being, as the passage of the Children and Young Persons Bill through Committee was frustrating for me. I failed to get my amendment accepted because it dealt with a health matter. I think we need more joined-up Government. The Government's response is, I think, basically in agreement with the Select Committee, but we need more than words. Many troubled and vulnerable young people are brought into the care system and many of them will have been abused, yet therapeutic treatment is not available promptly across the country. Provision is really patchy. It is not good enough just to promise assessments; we really need to offer the treatment. It must be provided promptly if we are to break the cycle of abuse. There has been talk of what will happen in the future; perhaps the Minister will give us an idea of the time frame.
	Of course children and young people need to stay in care for longer, especially as 45 per cent. of those in care are adolescents. Evidence given to the Select Committee by one of our witnesses suggested that the GCSE results of 16-year-olds in care were remarkably good in view of the state that those children were in when they entered the care system. Because there is so much catching up to do, young people in care are likely to need to continue their education for quite a bit longer. I was pleased when Dorset was chosen as one of the areas for a "staying put" pilot scheme. Has the Minister any idea when we may be able to move beyond the pilots? I understand that they are going rather well.
	I was also pleased that the Committee considered the issue of kinship care. However, although a little more money is available since the passage of the Children and Young Persons Act 2008, I know of grandparents who are forced into hardship when they are doing their very best for children. Of course we do not want them to do it for the money, but I have witnessed the making of great sacrifices. "Voice of the Child" is dear to my heart, and I welcome the creation of children in care councils, although I should have preferred them to be statutory. I am not sure that they will be provided by all local authorities, but I sincerely hope that they will.
	The Committee said a great deal about advocacy. We argued strongly that every child should be entitled to an independent advocate whenever a decision was made about him or her. The Government responded favourably, making a commitment that future statutory guidance would state explicitly that children were entitled to such support. When will that guidance be introduced, and when will this actually happen? Let me issue a particular plea for disabled children. Many children in the care system are severely disabled, and they of all people need advocates—not necessarily the advocates whom we might expect to appoint, but those who will understand their gestures and emotions.
	The right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) made an important point about trafficked children. We have much more to do in that regard. I was disappointed that the Government did not accept the Committee's recommendation that a guardian should be appointed for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The Government keep turning their back on that all-important issue.
	There is much to celebrate in the progress of some young people through the care system, and indeed much to celebrate in terms of their achievements on the way; but as we have been saying for a long time, we must do better. The quality of the work force across the board is key, as is the stability of placements. I agree with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) that every child in our society ought to be entitled to live in a stable loving relationship.
	I suspect that the Select Committee's report on social workers will be of great significance. We have heard compelling evidence to suggest that things need to be done very differently. Having read the preliminary report of the Social Work Taskforce, I hope that the Select Committee's report will make a bigger contribution. There is good practice, but we need to provide the best for all our children. We must make a cross-party commitment to tackling a very real issue that we have not faced up to over the years.

Tim Loughton: We have had a good and full debate for a Thursday afternoon, with some excellent contributions from both sides of the House on a range of different subjects. Different expertise was introduced into the debate, starting with the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) who spoke about child trafficking. My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) catalogued all the very poor outcomes—I will not repeat them—that I am afraid are very much a fact of life for children in the care system and the generational vicious circle of under-achievement that we so often see.
	The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) is not in his place but he mentioned that we are talking about victims. It needs to be reinforced that in 99.9 per cent. of cases of children who find themselves in the care system, it is not their fault. They are the victims. They come from a damaged background and they deserve and have the right to a second chance at a decent upbringing, which is what the care system should be able to provide for them.
	The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) made some interesting points about the respective ages of leaving care and the particular pressures of the availability of housing. I will not mention the particular cases mentioned by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), one of which I have a special interest in. He certainly had a great fascination for the detail of statistics and the research that was needed—until, of course, it came to researching the number of world wars, where he was out by a margin of 50 per cent.
	The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) has spoken a lot on this subject and she made the point that the report received a lot of good media coverage. I wonder whether it would have received the same level of media coverage had it not been in the wake of the baby Peter tragedy. Probably the biggest tragedy is that it takes such a high-profile case to put the subject in the public consciousness and on the front pages, yet it is a problem and a scandal that has been going on day in, day out for too many years.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) and his Committee on the detail and thoroughness of the report and on being able to secure this debate. As I said, we have not had debates on vulnerable children and children in care in all the time that we have had a Children's Minister; such debates have been held only in Opposition time. They should be held more and we have a responsibility to do that.
	The report should not really be necessary. We should have tackled the scandal of these under-achievements a long time ago. Along with child protection and safeguarding, the Government have done a lot in terms of legislation over the past few years, especially since the Climbié report. We have had big structural changes—in children's services and in directors of children's services. Lots of new positions and new databases have been created, with varying effectiveness. We have had new qualifications for the professionals involved in looking after vulnerable children. I fear that the system has become rather bureaucratic. In some cases, it can be said that the system has become more about protecting itself and conforming with the rule books than about protecting the vulnerable children and families whom the people involved are there to protect.
	We have been clear for some years—we published "No More Blame Game", the results of the Conservative party's commission on social workers, almost two years ago and made a submission to the Laming inquiry—that new structures, new personnel, new titles and new computer systems are all very well, but they are subsidiary to making sure that there are adequately resourced, motivated, trusted and respected professionals, especially social workers, able to get on with their jobs at the sharp end. It is not computer systems that rescue vulnerable children and provide them a decent opportunity to rebuild a damaged upbringing by giving them the tools to succeed. It is the right interventions by the right people, properly informed by computer data rather than shackled to those computers for too much of the time as they struggle to fill in ever more bureaucratic integrated children's systems and other assessment forms—constantly chasing their tails, reacting to safeguarding children cases, rather than getting involved proactively to keep families together and steer them away from crisis situations or to remove a child speedily when the value judgment needs to be made.
	Nine years on from the tragic death of Victoria Climbié, and following numerous reviews of the care system, it is unacceptable that, for many children, simply taking them into care will condemn them to a childhood of significant under-achievement. If we are taking a child into care, it must be able to replace that child's growing up environment with something that is better. It must take them out of immediate danger but surely gives them something better than they would have put up with had they remained with their birth parents.
	We have heard all the statistics. The proportion of children in care achieving five GCSEs or equivalent at grade A* to C has risen from 8 per cent. in 2001 to 13.9 per cent. in 2008. That is progress, but over the same period the proportion of all children—including children in care, so the figure for non-children in care is even higher—achieving those grades at GCSE has risen from 48 to 65 per cent. The gap, which is what is important, has risen from 40 per cent. in 2001 to about 51 per cent. That under-achievement gap is the true scandal, and it shows how we regard children in care. We permit them to under-achieve so badly because the system is simply not looking after them.
	Let us look at some other outcomes. The report underlined the fact that 45 per cent. of looked-after children aged between five and 17 have mental health problems, compared with one in 10 of the school-age population as a whole. Also, up to 49 per cent. of young offenders in young offenders institutions have been in the care system, and we condemn them to a recidivism rate that makes it very likely that they will get on to the slippery slope to a lifetime of crime. We still have a long way to go, therefore.
	It is not only right in itself that we should redouble our efforts to get a better deal for children in care, but it is a false economy not to do so, as children from the care system feature disproportionately in the fallout from broken Britain. Following the baby Peter case, the situation has become even more urgent, as the number of applications for care proceedings has risen sharply from December of last year. Interestingly, however, the proportion actually resulting in care orders has fallen quite sharply over that period, which raises the question of whether there is an unnecessary knee-jerk reaction. We need to do more research into that.
	I do not want to be entirely negative, because in my travels around children's services departments throughout the country in recent months I have seen some excellent examples of good practice—as, I am sure, have many hon. Members. They need to be disseminated more widely, however.
	Yesterday morning, I visited an excellent small residential home in Harrow that is run by the local authority. It gives very good support to the teenage residents there. I met the director of children's services for Harrow, Paul Clark, who knows all of the 150 children in the care of that borough. Last week, he took a group of them out bowling. All the children in care in that authority can have access to the director of children's services. We should be able to expect such hands-on contact in all authorities.
	On Monday, I spent the day with social workers in Hackney, and saw the effective new social worker units there with their consultant social worker professionals. They are fired-up and motivated people, and they told me that they are now spending more of their time with the vulnerable families and their children, rather than in front of computers filling in assessment forms—although they would like to scrap the integrated children's system or ICS all together. In the past few years, that borough has gone from being almost a basket case in child safeguarding to reducing the number of children in care by about a third. It has done that by being far more proactive, putting in far more resources, and freeing up far more social workers' time to spend with the families in order to try to keep the children with their families and keep the children together. That is the result that all of us want to achieve. Consequently, whereas there are a great many problems with vacancy rates in other authorities throughout the country, for its posts of consultant social worker that authority was turning away 10 applicants for every one recruited—so it can choose the cream of the crop. This can be done, therefore.
	Barnet had an innovative recruitment campaign called "Got a new Barnet?" It has brought in a buddy system: every child in care is buddied up with an officer of the council, from the chief executive downwards. Educational achievement, for one thing, has gone up considerably.
	Nearby, in Ealing, where I opened the Horizons education centre the year before last, there is a drop-in place for children in care. It is run largely by people who used to be children in care, who went on to university, and who have taken up work with that borough, so they really know what children in care want. As of this year, 18 per cent. of children in care in the borough of Ealing are going on to university, which compares with some 1 or 2 per cent. of the looked-after children population as a whole. That is an extraordinary achievement, and I believe that Ealing's figure is the highest in the country.
	Another example that I have seen is the family drug and alcohol court in Wells street, here in London. It is a new pilot scheme, based on an experiment in the United States, whereby intensive support is given to parents who are on the verge of losing their children to the care system. It involves not only rehabilitation for drug and alcohol problems, which are so often the cause of family break-up, but housing support, education support and so on. It is a real last-chance saloon aimed at trying to keep families together.
	I have seen examples of family conferencing through the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, and we need a lot more of that. I have seen Foster Care Associates projects offering intensive support to foster carers such that the educational achievements of children in that sort of foster care are alarmingly higher than the average that would be expected. I have seen the Action for Children black families adoption project, which is run out of south London, where black children, and black teenage boys in particular, who are disproportionately represented in the looked-after children system are now finding prospective adoptive black parents, of whom there have been a great scarcity. That innovative project is offering those black children stable, loving homes and a second chance to have the stable family upbringing that they have missed out on.
	The Government response to the report was a bit light and could have gone a lot further, although the spirit of it was very much in agreement with the thrust of the Committee's report, most of which I agree with. I support the measures in the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 designating a teacher responsible for looked-after children. I would have also liked to see a designated governor to give some extra beef to the accountability line and ensure that things are carried out in practice. It is important to ensure that children in the care system are kept, wherever possible, in a familiar environment that is close to home, close to family members and extended family members and close to their school so that they can receive some continuity of education, as the lack of that is such a big problem for so many children in the care system.
	Let us consider some of the points that the Committee made and the Government's response. The first point is about removing the barriers that obstruct the development of "good personal relationships". We have heard a bit today about the Danish experiment, but I do not think anyone has mentioned the pedagogue view of social work, which is all about empathy between the social worker responsible and the child in the care system. We hear so often from children in the care system about the lack of continuity in social workers. Children are constantly chasing their tails, they cannot rely on the social worker to turn up when they want them to do so, and before they know it the social worker has moved on and there is a change. How on earth can we expect to rehabilitate a child who has gone through such a damaged and disruptive family background if we constantly give them different schools or different foster carers because they are being moved around, or different social workers? These children need to establish empathy, stability and a link with people who have their best interests at heart.
	That is why the Danish experiment was so interesting. What I saw in the homes that I visited—I went to Helsinki with the shadow children's team—is a flexibility in the system. In this country, a child is either in care or with their birth parents. In the homes in Denmark—many more children in care there are in residential children's homes, which are almost exclusively owned and run by the municipalities in that country—there is greater flexibility. The children will go home, whatever home may be, at weekends. Once a week in one of the homes family members come in and the children cook dinner for them. We lack that greater flexibility in this country, and we need to see how some of the social pedagogy pilots that are being developed and that will be coming in with residential children's homes pan out, because I think that they could offer some interesting examples of how we can do things rather better.
	The social worker practices to which we gave legislative authority in the recent Bill will be very important, certainly in providing specialisations to deal with some of the more challenging children. We need to consider how to ensure that we can fill the gap in the number of foster carers; there is a shortage of up to 10,000 quality foster carers in this country. There is a postcode lottery of what we pay foster carers and how we support them. If we invested a bit more in the support that we give them, especially those dealing with some of the most challenging children, fewer placements might break down—which is a big problem. We should also do more with kinship carers. It is crazy that in this country some 4 to 6 per cent. of social worker-instigated placements are with kinship carers, but in Denmark the figure is nearer 25 per cent. The guidance says that we should do more, but in practice we are not achieving it. Much more practical help for foster carers, especially kinship foster carers, is needed.
	I have a serious concern about what Ofsted is actually inspecting in children's social care. There is still a big problem with the legacy from the Commission for Social Care Inspection. Ofsted is dominated by people from educational backgrounds and we know that there is not a single qualified social worker on its board, so we need to review the way in which it inspects children's homes and other forms of children's social care.
	I am glad that the Government have set aside any notion of a target number of children in care. That was a nonsense, as are any targets for children in care. Every child must be treated as an individual.
	Many hon. Members mentioned the need to intervene early wherever possible. It is a false economy not to do so, because some children are so damaged when they eventually come into care that it takes twice as much effort to get them back on to the straight and narrow.
	It is crazy that in this country the average age at which children leave their parents' home is 25—it is getting later and later because of property prices and the recession—but we expect many children in residential care to go into the big wide world at the age of 16. They face enormous questions about whether to get a job or sit more exams, and how to find housing. We need more flexibility in the system because, while some children may be up to doing all that at 16, some certainly are not. Even for those able to do it at 16, everything can go pear-shaped a couple of years later and they find that they cannot cope. That is why we need support mechanisms so that children can leave the care system, but dip back into it if they need to do so.
	It is absurd that many care leavers are declared intentionally homeless and have to fall back on the local authority to give them emergency housing. That is crazy, and I am pleased that the report mentions this vicious circle that affects too many of our most vulnerable young people. Housing is one of the biggest practical problems that they face.
	The recommendations in the report include a request to the Government
	"to guarantee future funding for social workers posts in Youth Offending Institutions."
	Earlier this year I visited the YOI at Brinsford and met the social worker of the year, Jacqui Knight, who is doing fantastic work there. She sent me a letter earlier this week from the Association of Directors of Children's Services, which warns that the funding for the scheme that has been working for some time to secure the long-term sustainability of social worker posts in YOIs is now seriously under threat. For that reason, some of the posts may be lost and the future of people such as Jacqui Knight is seriously in doubt. That would be an enormous loss in dealing with some of the most challenging young people who have left care and ended up in the youth justice system. I hope that the Government will look at the issue again, because those social workers are doing some fine work.
	I could also mention the whole problem of unaccompanied asylum seekers, of which I have particular experience in West Sussex, where we have Gatwick airport. Many children come into the care system as a result, only to be abducted by pimps from west Africa and to end up in the sex trade in northern Italy.
	This is an important report on a really important subject. It deserves much greater exposure than it has had over too many years. It is a tragedy that it has taken a high profile tragedy such as baby Peter to get this sort of work noticed.
	The outcomes for children in care in this country are a scandal that we have accepted over too many years. We must redouble our efforts to ensure that we do not fail so many children in the care system who have already been failed by their families. They have the right to expect the state to give them a second chance at a stable upbringing so that they can become the decent members of society that we all want them to become. We have a duty of care to ensure that that can happen.

Diana Johnson: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) and all the other members of the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families for compiling this report, which, as my hon. Friend said in his opening remarks, concerns the most vulnerable children in our society. I also want to thank members of the Select Committee for their interventions and speeches throughout this afternoon. I found the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) and the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) particularly useful and helpful. Some very interesting points were raised in both.
	We have had a wide-ranging debate, moving from issues such as council house building targets to the presidency of the EU. If I do not answer all the points that have been raised, I hope that hon. Members will forgive me. I shall try to write to them on any outstanding points.
	The report is a good one and it provides a thorough analysis of the care system. I am delighted that it recognises the commitment and investment that the Government have made since 1997 to help children in care. I think that we all agree that those children deserve exactly the same opportunities in life as their peers, whether that means a good education, good health care or simply the consistent support, advice and practical help that provides the foundations on which young people build their lives. The Government have set about strengthening those foundations through critical reforms such as Every Child Matters, "Aiming High" and "Care Matters".
	We recognise that there is always more to do and more support that we can provide to young people. Local authorities will have to open up new opportunities for children and ensure that the highest quality support is available to children in care everywhere, not just here and there. Councils need to stop thinking in terms of what is good enough for children in care. They should think instead about their role as corporate parents in helping the children in their care to shine.
	When I read the Select Committee report, I was very struck by the phrase "pushy parents". That is absolutely right. In these circumstances, we want corporate parents to be really pushy parents. That means making the appropriate financial investment and ensuring that the right services are in place, but it also means having very high expectations—the same expectations as any good parent.
	As corporate parents, councils need to ensure that their children and young people have the same access as others to educational and other opportunities. For example, if a child is musical they should be encouraged to learn an instrument and given the necessary funding, or if a boy has a sporting talent he should be provided with a sporting programme tailored to his needs. If a child needs one-to-one support tuition, councils should use the £500 personal education allowance that we have made available to pay for it. I recall that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North, who is not in his seat at the moment, talked about that point and had concerns about whether the money would get to where it is needed.
	This comes down to the fact that corporate parenting is just that—parenting. It is very important for the welfare of the child in care that councillors do not lose sight of that fact. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North also mentioned the need to celebrate the success of young people in care and how opportunities to do that should be embraced to make young people feel as they would in a family situation. If they pass exams, there should be a celebration of that.
	The Government recognise, of course, that we have responsibilities to make the changes happen. We must help improve children's services by providing the right legislation and structural frameworks, by setting clear objectives and standards and by monitoring and inspecting services and outcomes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield knows, last year we passed the Children and Young Persons Act 2008, which we believe will put the right legislative framework in place. Through our "Care Matters" programme, we now have a comprehensive programme of reform in place to provide clear objectives and standards.
	However, we will continue to do everything we can to transform the quality of care, and to raise aspirations for care leavers. That means taking action from the moment that children are placed in the hands of a local authority, which is why we want a shift in the quality of care provided by local authorities for looked-after children. We want to make sure that young people receive good parenting from every person involved in their lives. We want children in care to be consulted about their needs and views, and we want the educational performance of looked-after children to be improved so that the overwhelming majority attend school regularly and achieve good examination results.
	We also want to make sure that young people leaving care can participate socially and economically as citizens, while living in suitable accommodation and being in employment, education or training. I accept that those are very tough objectives, but we are confident that they are achievable. Indeed, we have already started to see the results of the investment that has been made. There has been a steady increase in the educational attainment of children in care, and the greater support given to care leavers has led to more children living in suitable accommodation. In addition, young people in care are experiencing fewer placement moves.
	Now is the moment to build on that success, and I hope that the report can act as a catalyst. I particularly want to talk about the voice of the child, because that has to be at the heart of policy development in this area. Listening to children in care is critical to ensuring that the care system can replicate the secure care of good parents for every looked-after child. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield stressed the need for the listening skills that were employed when the report was compiled. It is absolutely right that we must continue to listen to looked-after children so that we can hear what their experience has been like and what they would like to be changed.
	That means that decisions should always be made in the best interests of the child, based on a thorough assessment of their needs. We must take the child's wishes and feelings fully into account, just as any parent would. We expect all local authorities to establish children in care councils and to put in place pledges to give children and young people a real opportunity to influence services and support in their area.
	We have asked the charity A National Voice, which represents children in care, to contribute to this autumn's ministerial stock-take on the progress of children in care councils. I know that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole is particularly interested in that. In addition, local authorities and their children's trust partners are expected to consult young people in developing their children and young persons plan. For individual children in care, the current framework of legislation and statutory guidance already requires the local authority to involve children and record their views.
	Good children's services should be developed with young people, not foisted on them. We know that children in care want to be listened to on the day-to-day issues that affect their lives, such as pocket money, bedtimes, sleepovers or clothes. As parents, of course we listen to the views of our own children on these issues, even if we do not always agree with them. As corporate parents, we should do exactly the same thing for children in care.
	I agree that care planning has not always taken proper account of the child's wishes and feelings, but the role of the independent reviewing officer is being strengthened to ensure that children participate in planning for their own care, and that the care plan is based on a through assessment of all aspects of the individual child's needs. The Children and Young Persons Act 2008 will enhance that framework, and reinforce the responsibility of the child's social worker for establishing and recording the child's views.
	A lot has been said this afternoon about the relationship between the work force and children. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield mentioned the vital importance of social workers or residential or foster carers having a strong bond with children and their families. I absolutely agree with him on that point, and on the report's conviction that the care system should be seen as part of a continuum of effective family support services, rather than as something separate and distinct. We know that, where there are strong attachments between children and at least one adult, children are happier and achieve better outcomes. The Government are absolutely committed to improving the skills and competencies of foster and residential carers. We want to support them in building strong relationships with the children and young people whom they look after, and help them to take good decisions about their care.
	As my hon. Friend knows, the "Care Matters" implementation plan sets out a programme of work to achieve those aims. That includes much better training and support for foster carers, with the roll-out of the fostering changes programme and the piloting of the social pedagogy model in residential children's homes that comes from Denmark. We have heard a lot this afternoon about the experiences in Denmark and other European countries. There is a pilot in England, and careful attention will be paid to its outcomes.
	Supporting relationships with family members is crucial. Most children are in care only for short periods, and a primary aim must be to try to settle them back with their parents, wherever possible and appropriate. Even when children are likely to remain in care for the long term, most children will want to maintain their links with their family.
	Let me deal with foster carers. "Care Matters" highlights the need to support foster carers to develop their own training and skills, thus allowing them to respond more appropriately to children in their care. But I agree with the Select Committee report that foster carers should also be given practical support, including financial support and information about how to access education and health services. That is why, as my hon. Friend knows, we have funded a number of initiatives in recent years to improve the support for foster carers, such as working with the Children's Workforce Development Council to develop foster care training, support and development standards; funding the national roll-out of the fostering changes programme; introducing a national minimum allowance for foster carers in 2007; and, of course, funding Fosterline—a national, independent advice line for foster carers.
	A number of Members have commented on residential care. I am in complete agreement that resident care has an important role to play as a placement option. For many young people, particularly the older ones, it will be the right placement choice. However, many local authorities and social workers still do not see it as a positive option; they see it as an option of last resort. That is why the Government are committed to ensuring that residential care is seen as a positive option for those young people who would benefit from it.
	Children's homes cater for some of the most vulnerable children in our society, and it is important to note that the quality of that provision has been improving. As my hon. Friend will know, 92 per cent. of children's homes have been rated satisfactory or better by Ofsted and two thirds were rated as good or outstanding at their most recent inspections. But there is no room for complacency, and we need to continue to do everything that we can to raise standards in children's homes. That is why we are now funding the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care, introducing tough new enforcement powers for children's homes that fail to comply with the national minimum standards, revising the national minimum standards for children's homes, and working with the Children's Workforce Development Council to look at developing training and development standards for staff in children's homes.
	Social work reform is a very important issue, which my hon. Friend raised in his contribution at the beginning of the debate. The Select Committee is carrying out an inquiry into that critical area, in which the Government have made significant strides. As hon. Members will be aware, the Secretaries of State for Children, Schools and Families and for Health established a joint social work taskforce at the end of last year to make recommendations, and it has already consulted widely with social workers and other key partners. The work of the taskforce will build on Lord Laming's report, and it is important to acknowledge that much good work is already under way to improve social care services for children and young people locally and nationally.
	Alongside new funding, the Secretary of State has also announced a number of new measures that are intended to have an immediate impact. That includes addressing recruitment issues through the return to social work scheme, the graduate recruitment scheme and the roll-out of the newly qualified social worker programme. The very nature of social work means that it will always be a challenging job. Too often, our social workers do not get the recognition that they so thoroughly deserve. We must therefore ensure that they are properly supported to carry out their hugely important work, while also being properly valued and respected.
	On the education of looked-after children, the report rightly raises the issue of the gap in educational attainment between children in care and their peers. We know only too well that every poor GCSE result chips away at a young person's aspirations and prospects. However, progress is being made; in 2008, 14 per cent. of looked-after children achieved five GCSEs at grades A* to C. That is double the figure in 2000, but it has to be better. Of course, huge progress has been made by the young people as a whole, which is to be applauded and welcomed, but we must get things right for looked-after young people in particular.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield will know, key stage 2 attainment has been improving steadily. Undoubtedly there is more to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North spoke about the fact that looked-after children are given top priority in admissions arrangements. That goes for all schools; there was some debate about academies. There is a £500 personal education allowance. We are already piloting the role of the virtual school head, which the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) mentioned, and there will be designated teachers for looked-after children in every school from the start of the new school year. It is worth recognising that opportunities for boarding are available, where they are suitable for the needs of a child.
	We have talked about health. We have been working hard to improve the health of children in care, and in recent years there has been an increase in the proportion of children who have had their annual health assessment and visit to a dentist. By 2008, some 87 per cent. of looked-after children had received a dental check and a health assessment in the previous year. The 2007 child health mapping survey found that 76 per cent. of primary care trusts had a designated doctor for looked-after children in post, and 93 per cent. reported having a designated nurse in post for looked-after children.
	I agree on the need to improve the support that child and adolescent mental health services provide to children in care, particularly given the very worrying statistic that around 45 per cent. of looked-after children aged five to 17 have a mental health problem of some kind. That issue is being explored as part of the consultation on the revised statutory guidance on the health and well-being of looked-after children.
	On the outcomes for care leavers, there are some encouraging signs that things are getting better. For instance, the proportion of care leavers in suitable accommodation rose from 79.6 per cent. in 2004 to 88.4 per cent. last year. The proportion of care leavers in education, employment and training has risen from 55.4 per cent. to 64.9 per cent. However, I agree that we need to do much better and go a lot further more quickly. That is why we want to change the way in which we think about that period in a young person's life. It should no longer be seen as leaving care; it should be seen as a transition to adulthood.
	We cannot and should not arbitrarily assume that young people are ready to move on simply because they have reached a certain age; a number of hon. Members have made that point. Instead, we need a presumption that children will continue to be looked after up to the age of 18. There will only very rarely, I think, be good reasons for a local authority to cease looking after a child before he or she turns 18. Local authorities will be prevented from moving a looked-after child from a fostering or children's home to what they call "other arrangements" unless they decide to do so following a statutory review of the child's case.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield knows that through "Care Matters", we will pilot a scheme whereby care leavers stay with former foster carers at 18. He will also know that a care leaver can access health and care services up to the age of 21, and that they will have personal advisers available up to the age of 25 if they need help with further learning or training. As I think Members in all parts of the House recognise, having a job is, for any young person, the first step to improving social mobility. For too long, too many young people have fallen into the trap of poverty and joblessness after leaving care because there was no one to give them the help that they needed.
	Our new employment programme for care leavers will provide that helping hand and give such young people the opportunity to realise their true potential. There will be career mentoring and work experience to support them into stable and rewarding work, and access to an appropriate range of accommodation options, which is vital to improving a young person's successful transition to adulthood. We would not accept our own children leaving home to live in unsuitable accommodation, and we certainly should not accept looked-after children living in unsuitable accommodation.
	In conclusion, I hope that I have shown that the "Care Matters" programme is about the Government, local authorities and voluntary organisations building a new partnership and investing to reverse past failings. Our most fundamental aim is to ensure that vulnerable children in this country get the best that society can offer—the care, safety and security that each and every child deserves. We need services that act no longer just as a safety net against failure, but as a springboard for success.

Louise Ellman: I am pleased to have the opportunity today to debate the important topic of road safety. This debate is taking place on estimates day, and it is very important, indeed, that essential spending on road safety measures be maintained.
	Road safety is about the lives of individuals and their families, and it is even more than that: it is a major issue that affects all our society. The Transport Committee's report, "Ending the Scandal of Complacency: Road Safety Beyond 2010", sees road safety as a public health issue, looks at a way forward and how the situation can be improved and makes important recommendations to the Government.
	The road safety debate is ongoing. The Government produced an interim response followed by a fuller response, and that was linked to the Government's road safety strategy consultation called, "A Safer Way: Consultation on Making Britain's Roads the Safest in the World". The Committee's report commends the Government on reaching their targets on road safety, and the most recent figures record, for 2008, the lowest number of road casualties yet. However, if we look at the cold facts, we find that 2,538 people still died on our roads in 2008; that 26,029 were recorded as having been seriously injured; and that there were total casualties of 230,884. That means thousands of blighted lives, and it is worth noting that road accidents are the largest single cause of death in people aged between five and 35 years old. They are tragedies for the individuals and their families, but it is a national scandal that so many people die.
	It is self-evident—indeed, it should make us think a little—that the scale of the carnage on our roads is not acceptable in any other mode of transport. We are talking about 2,500 people dead and more than 230,000 casualties, and, if those figures related to rail, sea or aviation, there would be national uproar. However, there is no uproar about them.

Eric Martlew: If I wanted to be glib, I would say that it is slightly ironic that we are talking about ending the scandal of complacency to an almost empty Chamber. The reality is that since the day we were born, we have got used to the idea that people get killed in road accidents. Also, we accept that things are getting better. I believe that in 1958, 6,000 people were killed on the roads, with a fraction of the traffic that we have today. At the end of last month it was announced that about 2,500 people had died on the roads in the previous year, so there has been a massive reduction.
	People are complacent, and they believe—this is not a party political matter—that the Government are doing a good job and that accident and death figures are going in the right direction. I suspect that if we were having a debate about knife crime, there would be many more Members in the Chamber, even though the number of people killed by knife crime is fraction of the number killed on the roads.
	There are some disturbing points in the report, however, and one that I want to touch on is the deaths of motorcyclists. I know that the number went down slightly in 2008, but there was a large increase before that. I suspect that the Transport Committee and the Government do not really know what is happening; we know that there is a problem, but we do not know what the solution is.
	Over the years, I think that two people have come to see me about deaths of motorcyclists. Both mentioned cases that were not the fault of the motorcyclist but that of a motorist or somebody driving a farm vehicle. The Government should aim their measures at drivers of other vehicles—people such as myself—who somehow do not seem to notice motorcyclists. I suspect that another problem is the middle-aged man who used to drive a bike when he was 21, who comes down from Alston moor on a beautiful day such as today and perhaps does not have the experience that he used to have when he was riding every day as a necessity rather than just at the weekend. We need to consider carefully how we can reduce deaths among motorcyclists, because motorcycling is an environmentally friendly way to travel and we should encourage people to do it. When statistics show that a person is 40 times more likely to be killed on a motorcycle than in a car, it is off-putting.
	The number of child deaths has fallen tremendously over the past 10 years, but every single death of a child is a tragedy, and I believe that the number increased slightly in the past year, from 121 to 124. We should be looking into how we can reduce that. Indeed, I know that the Government have a target to reduce child deaths by 50 per cent.; I will return to Government targets later.
	However, one thing that worries me is that although we are achieving a reduction in the number of children killed, we are also preventing youngsters from going out. One of the reasons for the fall in deaths is not that the traffic has got better; it is that parents do not like children to go out. In a way, the motor vehicle is turning youngsters into captives. We also need to compare the statistics for children from deprived backgrounds with those for children from affluent backgrounds. The number of children from deprived backgrounds who are killed is considerably out of proportion to the number from affluent backgrounds killed. We have to find out how we can make the streets safe—but not by keeping our children indoors. The 20 mph speed limit is an excellent example. Indeed, some whole towns have a 20 mph limit. We should consider that idea.
	There has been talk of international comparisons. I do not think that it matters whether we are top of the league or third or fourth, but we must continue to improve. We will be very near the top for 2008. Some countries, such as France and Spain, have improved greatly, but their numbers of deaths were much higher than ours. We have lessons to learn from the Netherlands and other areas. One part of the United Kingdom whose record bothers me is Northern Ireland, where people are three times more likely to die in a road accident than people on the mainland, and twice as likely to die in a road accident as people in the Republic. Perhaps the many years of the troubles made people in Northern Ireland concentrate on other priorities, but perhaps the new devolved Administration will try to find ways of putting that right.
	Another issue that concerns me is deaths on rural roads. Mine is a mostly urban constituency, although it is surrounded by a rural area and parts of it are rural. All too often, my constituents or people from a neighbouring constituency have been killed on the roads outside the city, and we can all see why. We have single carriageways. People go on those roads, get frustrated—perhaps by a farm vehicle, a learner driver or an elderly driver—and there is dangerous overtaking. Most of the time people get away with it, but if they do not, they end up in a head-on collision. That is how most fatalities happen.
	There is also a problem with the speed limit. Local authorities have some leeway on that, and the Government are encouraging them to do more. I am schizophrenic about the issue, in the sense that I like to be able to go quite fast—up to 60 mph—but if we reduce the limit to 50 mph, we will reduce deaths considerably, so our freedom in that respect should be curtailed. However, one of my concerns about the Government's proposals is that if we create more and more 50 mph zones, we will have to put up more and more signs. Do we really want to clutter up the roads in the countryside—especially the Cumbrian countryside—with a sign every 100 yards saying that the speed limit is 50 mph? The Government should consider that.
	I am pleased that the Government have taken on board a lot of our work in their draft consultation report. People say, "Select Committees don't count," but that is nonsense, because the Government have been able to pick our brains. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) was a member of our Committee, and a valued one too. I accept that the Government have other responsibilities and that we are only there to make suggestions, but a lot of work has been done.
	I am disappointed, however, by the Government's response to the problem of novice drivers. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) has covered most of the points on that subject. I am worried about novice drivers going out late at night in their small Peugeots or Fords. There are often two lads and two girls in the car, and they fly around at 11 o'clock at night without having had any experience of driving in the dark. I am not suggesting that they have had too much to drink. The car comes off the road, hits a tree and young lives are destroyed. Some of the young people might not die but they will be badly injured. The Government copped out over the question of a curfew. I know that that would be difficult to enforce, but I believe that the parents would have enforced it. They would have said, "You know that this is your first year of driving. You have to be back by 11 o'clock." I hope that the Government will look at that matter again.
	I shall make my final point now. We had plenty of time for these debates, but the first one ran for quite a while. The Government have set a target of achieving a 50 per cent. reduction in child road deaths by 2020, and a 33 per cent. target for reducing adult deaths. That is welcome, but the Minister will be aware that we are starting from a level of 3,000 deaths a year, which means that our target is 2,000 by 2020. That is quite an easy target to reach. I think that 2,500 people died in the past year, so we are halfway towards achieving it already. We could easily get the figure down to 2,000 by 2010 if the advances of the past two years are repeated in the next two.
	We do not really know why the reduction is taking place. It probably has something to do with the fact that new cars have better safety features, including air bags. It might also have something to do with the Ministers in the OPEC countries putting up the price of fuel, which results in people reducing their speed. If we are to reduce the number of people being killed—and the number of lives devastated as a result—we have to reduce our speed. I know that some people do not like that idea, although as I get older I do not mind it so much. I would probably have objected to it more when I was 30 years younger.
	The Government have done a good job, although they have missed some of the opportunities suggested in our report. I hope that they will look again at the proposal for a curfew, and I believe that their targets will be too easily achieved and should be revised downwards. Perhaps it is a bit daft to say that we are aiming for a target of only 2,000 people being killed, but targets work—and really, we should be aiming for a figure of 1,500, or even 1,000, by 2020. That would be better for everyone.

Bob Russell: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew), who has clearly given a lot of thought to these matters. I congratulate the Select Committee and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) on the presentation of their report. I declare an interest, in that I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on road safety, and of the associate parliamentary group for justice for road traffic victims, with which the charity RoadPeace is connected. I first became interested in road safety issues a good 40 years ago when, as a young reporter on the local newspaper, the Essex County Standard, I had the unfortunate duty of reporting on road crashes and attending inquests.
	My understanding is that the number of road deaths last year—2,500—was the lowest since records began, and that it was on a par with the figure for 1926, when there was considerably less traffic on the roads. I also understand that we reached a peak of about 8,000 road deaths in 1966. That is an horrendous statistic, bearing in mind the number of cars that were on the road then, compared with today. Much credit must be given to the successive Governments and road safety Ministers who have achieved this progress, but there is more to be done. My view is that there should be no target other than a zero target, because one road death is one too many. I do not find much cause for rejoicing in saying, "Only 120 children got killed last year, whereas it was 130 the previous year." We need to drive down—literally drive down—the number of road deaths.
	I pay special tribute to the new road safety Minister, who yesterday graciously spent nearly an hour with me and two constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Bell, whose only child Jordan, aged 14, was killed in a road crash in my constituency by someone driving at more than 30 mph in a 30 limit; his alcohol content was marginally below the legal maximum of 80 mg per 100 ml. The petition that my constituents presented is intended to get that limit down to 50 mg, which I believe is not an unreasonable target. Even that would be higher than it is in Sweden, which shares with Britain the best record in the world for reducing road deaths. If we must have targets, these are targets that we can be proud of, as we have done more than any country in the world apart from Sweden to reduce road deaths, and Sweden has a much lower drink-drive limit than us. If we could get it down to 50 mg, we could all be proud of it, and my constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Bell, would certainly feel that some good had come of their tragedy.
	There are other important issues. We need to invest in road safety in order to prevent road deaths and serious injuries, which—never mind the human tragedy—are a considerable cost to the economy. I have visited hospitals and seen people who have been involved in road crashes on life-support machines, so I know about the trauma and tragedy that goes with that. We need to persuade the Treasury that having traffic-calming measures outside schools and carrying out road safety measures will actually save the public purse in the long run.
	I drew to the attention of the road safety Minister only yesterday—I do so again to the House this afternoon—that on a side road by a school in Westminster there is a school safety sign the like of which I have not seen anywhere else in the country. The school sign is painted on the highway itself, so a motorist who cannot see a sign on a post will be able to see it on the road surface—unless we have snow, of course, which is unlikely at this time of year. For most of the year, that road sign is there in paint on the highway. A few weeks ago, when I was in glorious Derbyshire, I found another type of school safety sign in Chesterfield that I would like the Department for Transport to introduce elsewhere. It flashes at school arrival and departure times, not only to indicate the school but to introduce a 20 mph speed limit during those periods. Those two measures alone would be very useful, especially if we could join them together.
	I am one of only a few people who are fans of speed cameras. I remember discussing speed cameras in connection with an earlier transport Bill. The right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), then a Home Office Minister, was the nice guy and the other Minister, Mr. Paul Boateng, was the not-so-nice guy. The right hon. Member for Norwich, South assured me that speed cameras were a road safety device, not a revenue generator—and I hope that remains the case. Since then, other cameras have been introduced that flash up the relevant speed limit—30 mph, 40 mph or whatever. I suggest that what we need is a hybrid camera—one that states whatever the speed limit is, but also imposes a fine if a driver exceeds that limit. The technology is there; it is just a question of putting the two cameras on the same pole.
	The hon. Member for Carlisle drew attention to the need for better design of our country roads. I should like the Minister to discuss with his colleagues the A140 north of Ipswich, which extends through Suffolk into Norfolk and up to Norwich—a place that I may visit more frequently in the next few weeks, but which I already visit on a regular basis.
	The A140 features regularly on regional television. We frequently learn that there has been another crash, that the road is closed, that people have been killed. The road itself is not unsafe. We know that crashes are caused by drivers, not by roads. However, if roads were better engineered, and if the various hazards were engineered out, there would be fewer road crashes—Members will note that I never use the word "accident"—fewer injuries on the roads, and fewer fatalities. Obviously the A140 is not the only road to which that applies; it applies to roads all over the country. I have cited it because it is the main road link between Ipswich and Norwich, and the road that my constituents in north Essex use to travel to Norfolk.
	Let me say something about traffic calming and reducing speed limits. Until I had a taster session with the Colchester branch of the Institute of Advanced Motorists I was the world's best driver, but I quickly realised that there was a lot to learn. I took the full course, and finally passed the IAM test. I learnt two things: that, as the hon. Member for Carlisle suggested, the speed limit should be dropped by 10 mph; and that a driver should keep space between his car and the vehicle in front of it. Those two simple measures alone would result in a huge reduction in the number of road crashes, deaths and injuries.
	There is a pressing case in our urban areas for 20 mph zones—not just on new estates, where that is often already the case, but in established areas. I am pleased to say that many years ago, when I was a local councillor, my badgering led to the introduction of the first 20 mph speed limit in Essex, in a Victorian-Edwardian high-density residential area. Twenty miles per hour is more than fast enough in most of our residential suburbs. We need more of those speed limits, and I urge the Government to press on. We have a proud record in forcing down the number of road deaths, but more can be achieved. I believe that with all-party support it can be achieved, but the Treasury must realise that, although investment costs money, saving lives saves the public purse a lot of money as well.

Norman Baker: There is undoubtedly a case as to how the police are asked to prioritise their time. I do not want to go too far down that track, Madam Deputy Speaker, as this is not a police debate, but any element of the public sector—whether it is the police or local councils—will respond to the target-driven culture that we now have. If those targets are accurately and sensible chosen, that can be productive. Sometimes targets that are chosen end up with peculiar and distorting results. Some police forces have sought to increase the number of crimes detected in order to get their figures looking better, although the crimes they detect are sometimes very minor. They are not spending their time looking at more serious crimes about which the public are more worried. There can be that distortion, therefore.
	Drink-driving has been mentioned by several Members, and it is undoubtedly a serious issue. My gut feeling is that while it has became socially unacceptable over the past 30 or 40 years—we have come a long way from "one for the road," which is how things were back then—that good work is beginning to be unpicked a bit. The old ways are creeping back again, and people are beginning to think, "Well, we'll just chance it." That might be because either the consequences are diminishing or the horror adverts are not on television as much as they used to be, or perhaps because the fear of being caught, which is always a main driver—no pun intended—in deterring people, has lessened because they do not think they will be stopped by the police. However, the fact is that 16 per cent. of all road deaths involve a drink-driver; that is a 2007 figure. To pick up on a point made by the Committee Chairman, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside, drivers aged between 17 and 19 are 10 times more likely to have a drink-drive crash than drivers of other ages. Just for clarity, let me say that earlier I was not necessarily advocating an increase in the driving age to 18; I was merely genuinely asking about the Committee's view on the matter, because there is a legitimate discussion to be had on it.
	I believe there is a strong case for the drink-drive limit to be reduced from 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood to 50 mg. International comparisons reveal that our limit is shared by Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta, but the 0.5 mg per ml limit is much more common across Europe: it is the limit for Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. That is where the centre of gravity lies across the European Union—and some countries even have a lower limit than 0.5.

Robert Goodwill: I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman), the Chair of the Select Committee, on its report. As a former member of the Committee, I know what good work it does and I remember with great affection her predecessor, Gwyneth Dunwoody, who always treated its members kindly—that generosity of spirit was not always extended to those hapless witnesses who gave evidence before us.
	I join everybody in the House in welcoming the very good figures on road casualties that came out last week; 408 people are alive in this country today who would not have been alive had it not been for the reduction. I hope that this country is clawing its way back to the top of the European safety record. I believe that only Holland remains ahead of us and I look forward to the years ahead, when we may well make further improvements. I think that tribute has been paid to a lot of different factors—among others, the actions of successive Governments and vehicle design. May I pay tribute to Britain's drivers, because these improvements are largely due to the sensible attitude of the majority of Britain's drivers?
	I do not wish to rain on the Minister's parade, but there is one proviso in those figures. The whole of the European Union experienced, on average, a 15 per cent. reduction in casualties last year. That was caused by a number of factors, the first of which has been mentioned: the fact that there was a noticeable reduction in speed on our roads last year when the price of petrol and diesel reached the dizzy heights that it did. We also saw, for the first time since the 1970s, a reduction in traffic on our roads. Last year, there was a 0.8 per cent. reduction because of the recessionary pressures in the economy.
	Although I have seen the figures on motorcycle casualties, which showed a slight increase, I wonder how much worse the figures would have been had we had a warm, decent summer. Many of those casualties are the born-again bikers—the people who passed their test on a Triumph Bonneville and now go out and buy a Ducati or a Fireblade and find that although the engine size is about the same the bike has tremendously more performance. Sadly, all too often on BBC Radio York on a Sunday afternoon I hear of yet another casualty on the rural roads of north Yorkshire. If we get more weather like this, I fear that we might well see more of that type of accident. Of course, although motorcycles make up only 1 per cent. of road traffic, they contribute to nearly a fifth of deaths on our roads.
	There are a couple of areas where the Government could, perhaps, be doing a little better. In saying that, I would not want to detract from the real progress that has been made in a number of areas. My first area of concern, however, is the motorcycle driving test. As the Minister will know, when the new manoeuvres aspect of the test came in, Ministers or officials failed to notice that the swerve and stop test had to be carried out at 50 kph. As we know, that is 31 mph—more than the speed limit on urban roads, which meant that the Government had to institute a programme of setting up large multipurpose test centres around the country.
	That has had two results. First, motorcyclists have to drive far greater distances to access a test. The nearest test centre to my constituency is Hull, which means more than an hour's journey. If it is winter and a young rider is on a moped or a small capacity motorcycle, it is rather a daunting journey. A number of people have been put off taking their test because of the larger distance involved. Secondly, and perhaps more worryingly, there have been a number of incidents, some of which have resulted in injury, during the controversial swerve and stop test, which must be carried out, as I mentioned, at 50 kph. In fact, in the first three weeks there were 14 incidents, I think, three of which resulted in injuries so serious that the person had to go to hospital.
	Before today's debate, most of the reports of concerns about this matter have been largely hearsay. I have a couple of letters that I have received, however. One is from a constituent of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). She says:
	"I am a teacher...We are desperately saving for a mortgage and to start a family, but needed transport to get to work...I am too scared to take the test. I have already heard of 2 accidents in the first few days, including a broken arm due to the new manoeuvres that you are required to take. Riding instructors have been speaking out against it, but the current government's agencies have been ignoring expert advice."
	I have another e-mail that I received only last week from a lady called Jean Galvin, who says,
	"I am an older female motorcyclist who is returning to motorcycling after a number of years. I attempted to take the new module 1 test on 28th May and failed. I have no issue with the majority of the test and applaud the testing of slow manoeuvring and clutch control, but I was horrified at the swerve test.
	I took this on a 125 which I had to violently accelerate around a curve in order to reach the speed of 50 kph. I was required to do this despite approaching a hazard. On my first attempt, I reached a speed of 49 kph and felt sure that if I had attempted to swerve in the required manner I would crash (as have many others). I used my best judgment and avoided the hazard in a safe way i.e. without the swerve.
	All of my instincts tell me not to accelerate toward a hazard—how can this be expected of any motorcyclist. It is now my intention to continue retaking my CBT"—
	that is, her compulsory basic training—
	"and to ride my 125 until such a time as the"
	Driving Standards Agency
	"comes to its senses and changes this situation. My heart goes out to the family of the person who will become the first fatality."
	Riders are being deterred from taking training and from taking the test. Having taken the compulsory basic training, which is basically like riding round cones in a car park—actually, it is better than that, but it is very basic initial training—riders realise that they can ride for two years without taking a test. I am concerned that many riders will continue to ride for two years, take the CBT and ride for two years again. That will result in less well trained motorcycle riders on our roads.
	The second point that I want to raise is the issue of drink and drug-driving. The Opposition do not intend to reduce the drink-drive limit, for the very reasons that the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) stated. Many other EU countries have lower limits, but they do not have the gold standard ban. As we have seen with speeding, giving people points on their licence and fines does not deter them.
	We feel that retaining the ban is very important, and for that reason we will not follow the example of other EU countries. However, I applaud the campaigns carried out by Ministers during the summer and at Christmas to raise awareness of drink-driving. If we get directly elected police commissioners in this country, they might want to put prioritising the enforcement of drink-driving in their election manifestos.

Robert Goodwill: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but feel that his proposal may be seen as too draconian. All too often, when we read of an accident in the newspapers, it involves a person who is twice or three times over the limit. We need to make sure that we are policing the existing limit before we move further.
	I turn now to the issue of drug-driving, in respect of which the UK is lagging behind many other countries in the world. We still rely on the field impairment test, which was used for drink-driving before Barbara Castle introduced the breathalyser. Drivers suspected of being under the influence of drugs are expected to walk down a white line at the side of the road.
	It is 2009. Countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Romania—for goodness' sake!—Croatia, Italy, Australia, Spain, Switzerland, Finland, Iceland, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg all have roadside drug-testing equipment that is deployed and used by police. Why is the UK lagging behind?
	I have seen the tests demonstrated. Using a saliva test at the roadside, they test for up to two drugs, although a new generation of equipment will soon test simultaneously for six different drugs.

Robert Goodwill: That is true, but GPs also have a responsibility. I tabled a parliamentary question recently to ask how many GPs, having prescribed a drug for which driving was forbidden after use, then reported to the driving licence authorities that the patient involved should not continue to drive while taking that drug. In many cases, GPs may be reluctant to put their relationship with patients at risk by grassing them up, so to speak, to Swansea.
	We need a debate on how we should treat drug-driving in the courts if we had drug-testing equipment out in the field. It would be difficult to set a safe limit for the drugs that we are talking about because they are illegal, and that is not the case with alcohol. I have not discussed this matter at any length with my colleagues who shadow the Justice Department or the Home Office but, although we could make it an offence for a person to have any drug at all in his system, I suspect that the Crown Prosecution Service might have to issue guidelines about the level of intoxication at which a prosecution could be brought.
	There is a precedent with speeding, for which the guidelines laid down by the Association of Chief Police Officers make it clear that a prosecution may be brought if a driver does 10 per cent. over the limit, plus 2 mph. Another example might involve theft: if, God forbid, I stole an orange from a stall in Pimlico market I may be let off with a warning, but if I hijacked a 38-tonner full of oranges I would be for the high jump. We need a genuine debate about how we police drug-driving, once the equipment is being used and deployed. I think that all parties would like to work constructively together to try to reach a solution to that vexing problem.
	Young drivers have been mentioned, and we have certainly looked carefully at ideas such raising the driving age to 18 and limiting the number of young people to two in a car. We are giving conflicting advice: we are saying that, if young people go out together, they should nominate a driver; but surely, in those circumstances, it is a good idea to have four or five people in the car if the driver has not been drinking. We have rejected the idea of a curfew, but we are very well aware of the risk to young drivers—it is the single biggest killer of 15 to 24-year-olds in the OECD countries, and the death rate among under-25s is double the normal death rate.

Robert Goodwill: The Opposition's position is to look at how the driving test can be made more appropriate and to make the driving test better but not necessarily harder. I have discussed with the Minister's predecessor the young men who pass their tests with flying colours, but the rather nervous drivers who perhaps scrape through the test are often the ones who are killed in accidents or incidents. So we need to make the test more appropriate to the conditions that young drivers face.
	During the consultation that, I think, has recently closed, we suggested taking the manoeuvres out of the driving test—the three-point turn, parallel parking and reversing around a corner—to buy an additional 15 or 20 minutes during the test when other driving skills, such as perhaps driving at higher speeds, could be examined to try to determine which young drivers are likely to be at risk.
	Rogue drivers have been mentioned. As the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) said, the fines that have been levied for having no insurance policy are often much less than the premiums paid by 17-year-olds. I do not know whether many hon. Members saw the "Top Gear" programme a couple of weeks ago, when Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond posed as 17-year-olds when trying to insure their cars. I must add that, of course, they did so over the telephone. I am sure that Mr. Hammond might just have been able to carry it off, but the other two would have certainly failed miserably at posing as 17-year-olds. They were quoted punitive premiums. Sadly, it is no wonder that many young people decide to become rogue drivers.
	Sadly, these days, it is very easy to be a rogue driver, given the ease of cloning vehicles. Police around the country are deploying many more automatic number plate detection systems, which are very good at picking up cars that are not insured or MOT-ed, or those that have been flagged up on the police national computer as being of interest, but it is very easy to steal a number plate from another identical car or even to go on to the internet to buy a so-called show plate that can be placed on a car and used to clone another one.
	Two years ago, I went on to one of those show plate sites on the internet and managed to buy number plates identical to those on the Prime Minister's Jaguar XJ6. Surely, if I can clone the Prime Minister's car, any car in the country could be cloned. I hasten to add that I did not put the plates on to my car, so congestion charge notices have not been arriving at No. 10 Downing street. However, the Government thought that they had ticked the box and come up with a solution because one had to show photographic proof of identity, along with the car's log book, when presenting oneself at a garage to buy number plates.
	Sadly, one can go to a variety of internet sites that advertise show plates, and although there is a warning at the bottom of the website saying that the plate must not be used on vehicles on the road, the plates are identical to the ones provided legitimately and can be used very easily to clone vehicles. Similarly, when plates are attached to a car, they can be removed and placed on another car. I suggest that simple, basic technology—the word "technology" does not even describe it—such as tamper-proof number plates that are broken if removed, could prevent such cloning from going on and mean fewer rogue drivers on our roads. All too often, rogue drivers, who are not insured, may be disqualified and whose cars might not be roadworthy, are involved in accidents on our roads.
	On speed enforcement, in some ways the Government could be accused of being a one-club golfer, given their reliance on fixed-speed cameras. As we see from the large number of people who have been fined because of those cameras, they are not even effective at stopping people speeding in areas where there are cameras, never mind where there are no cameras. The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) mentioned reactive signs. A reactive sign costs only £7,000, whereas a fixed-speed camera is £40,000. We look with interest at the experiment in Swindon, where the Conservative-controlled council has withdrawn from the safety partnership and is deploying the money in other ways to try to improve safety on its roads. My constituency is in north Yorkshire, where we do not have any fixed-speed cameras, and it is interesting that it has never been drawn to my attention that improvements in road safety are any lesser in north Yorkshire than anywhere else in the country.

Paul Clark: We have had an interesting, if short, debate on a fundamentally important issue, and I am delighted to respond to it. At the outset, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) for her work in chairing the Select Committee, and for presenting us with an important report on an issue that affects so many of us.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew), among others, has often said that the deaths and serious injuries on our roads, compared to those involving other modes of transport, is appalling. Before I turn to the clearly heartening statistics that were released last week, let me say that I agree that even one death is one too many. Members from all parts of the House strive to reduce the numbers, and although there should never be any cosy relationship between the Government and the Select Committee—or, indeed, the Opposition—we share that goal of reducing road casualties. Collaborative work and ideas will help us to achieve what many of us want, which is zero deaths.
	Last week's published statistics for 2008 showed excellent progress on reducing the toll of injury and, particularly, death on British roads. Several Members have referred to the 14 per cent. reduction in deaths since 2007, and that occurred across all transport modes: pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and occupants of cars, buses, coaches and goods vehicles.
	In addition, the total number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads fell by 7 per cent., and has fallen by 40 per cent. from our 1994 to 1998 average baseline, meaning that the target that we set for 2010 has now been met. I shall return to the question of whether the new targets are stretching enough. All parts of the House welcome the figures, but it is important not to get carried away. I said as much last Thursday at the Road Safety Foundation's launch of the European Road Assessment Programme's statistics, when I remarked that the figures were extremely welcome but that last year was economically extraordinary, combining the tail end of a spike in fuel prices with the beginnings of the global recession. That may have had some effect on transport levels, and therefore on casualty levels on our roads. Yet the trend is still downwards, and I want to put on the record my thanks to everyone in the transport industries who has helped us to achieve those results.
	We should not get carried away with having only—only—2,538 dying on our roads in a year, because that is still a dreadful statistic. We need to work on it and to do much better, and as the Select Committee Chairman said at the beginning of our proceedings, there is an ongoing debate about how to continue to reduce those figures. At the end of April we responded to the Committee's report and launched a consultation on our new long-term road safety strategy, which will come into force in 2010. Although it draws on many important lessons that we have learned from the current strategy, it sets out a fresh approach to road safety, proposals for new targets and measures to help us meet them.
	Despite recent successes, current casualty rates—death rates, in particular—are far too high, and although we have reduced serious injuries on our roads by 41 per cent. in the current strategy, deaths have come down by only 29 per cent. Therefore, we propose a bold strategy for the period beyond 2010, with a long-term vision not just to improve road safety, but to make Britain's roads the safest in the world.
	Our primary national target for 2020, therefore, is to reduce deaths by one third. We recognise that that is ambitious, but we believe that the target is grounded in reality and achievable. We also propose that serious injuries be reduced by 33 per cent. by 2020, giving local authorities a combined benchmark for deaths and serious injuries against which to measure their progress.

Paul Clark: I cannot at this stage. Although on the face of it that idea might seem to be straightforward and to achieve a given goal, we have to make sure that we are not opening up another area that gives cause for concern; that applies to some of the other issues that have been raised today as well.
	All users of any mode of transport—walking on two legs, cycling on two wheels, riding a motorcycle or being behind the wheel of a car or van—have a responsibility to be safe, for their own sake and that of others. A point has been raised about the reliability of STATS19, the police road accident data. The way in which those are used feeds into local authority statistics. Equally, we are doing work on the accident and emergency results from the health survey and the national travel survey, which include data and questions relating to road safety. We do not dispute that there may be differences between those figures, but we do not accept that there is any great difference in the degree of under-reporting compared with previous years. Of course there will be incidents where the police are not involved but ultimately—24 hours later, say—someone feels a twinge and ends up going to the accident and emergency department; whiplash is a good example of that sort of injury. We are doing more work in this regard, but the reliability of the data has not changed to any great degree since yesteryear.
	We propose to make our driver testing and training regimes better and to crack down further on the most dangerous behaviours. We believe that our regulatory regime is broadly fit for purpose. Our philosophy must therefore be to concentrate on improving the delivery of road safety—in particular, homing in on the roads, people and behaviours most associated with casualties on the network. We need to tackle the "hard cases" in road safety. Many of the steps that we are taking on data collection and so on are fundamental in getting the more detailed, homed-in data that we require to tackle the minority of people who cause many of the accidents, whether on categories of road such as rural single carriageways or on roads in residential areas.
	To improve safety on rural roads, which see some 60 per cent. of all road deaths but only 42 per cent. of traffic, we propose to publish maps every year highlighting the main roads with the poorest safety records so that highway authorities can take action with their partners to tackle those routes. We will also encourage them to reduce speed limits on rural single carriageways, on a targeted basis, from the current 60 mph limit. The level of danger on these roads varies widely—indeed, hon. Members have referred to several examples in their own constituencies—and we want authorities to reduce speed limits on the roads that have the most crashes.
	We will continue to encourage investment in improved highway engineering, as it is clear that such schemes are continuing to reduce casualties at relatively low cost. We want local authorities to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists by establishing 20 mph zones in streets of a primarily residential nature. Those will not be major through routes which happen to have a few houses on them, but streets whose clear primary purpose is access to homes. That is what must happen: the streets are for living in, not dying in.
	Work and investment has been going on through programmes such as Kerbcraft, whereby youngsters learn about the importance of respecting roads; it is about having the freedom to go out on the roads but knowing how to use them well for walking, using buses and cycling. I particularly draw attention to the £140 million three-year programme for Bikeability training, where it looks as though we will be able to achieve a year early our target of some 500,000 youngsters getting the skills and confidence to use our roads safely, with mums and dads being confident that their sons or daughters have those skills.
	I turn to issues of deprivation. The incidence of accidents in certain areas is a great cause for concern, and work is continuing on several projects. For example, there have been projects in Oldham, where we have put money into adults' road safety skills; in Hounslow—with the Somali community if I recall correctly, to help with a particular issue—and in other areas where we are considering how young people in particular are affected by advertising about speed and road use.
	I can also draw attention to the manual for streets, a document to which the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) referred. It is available to local authority planners, and relates to new developments as well as existing ones, It gives us the opportunity to take forward a number of the issues that hon. Members have raised.
	We are not only looking to continue to work in partnership with the motor industry to boost vehicle safety, but seeking to raise awareness of driver and passenger safety. We expect crash protection improvements to focus on particular problems or types of accident, and we believe that advanced vehicle safety systems that help drivers and motorcyclists avoid crashes have significant potential to reduce casualties over the next decade.
	We need to consider how we can influence behaviour, particularly on the matters included in our consultation last year on road safety compliance. It set out a number of proposals to crack down on motorists who endanger not only their own lives but those of others. The proposals include more penalty points for extreme speeding and strong measures to discourage the utterly irresponsible minority who drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
	We have taken a number of other steps, including increasing the work of the successful Think! brand of road safety advertising and the messages that we send through it. We have also recently published the results of our learning to drive consultation, which was launched last year, and will now proceed with plans to strengthen the way in which people learn to drive and are tested, and subsequently to encourage a culture of continued and lifelong learning for drivers.
	I turn to some of the many points that were raised in the debate. I wish the hon. Member for Colchester luck with the A140, which he believes he will be using a great deal on his way to Norwich. The work of the Road Safety Foundation, whose launch event he attended last Thursday, helps to identify the critical roads that have a high incidence of deaths or serious injuries, so that we can focus money and resources on improving them. That is a matter for local highways authorities.
	The Chairman of the Transport Committee talked about learning to drive. We are making changes to the theory test from this October, and the practical driving test from October 2010. Competence while driving independently will be brought into the test. We seriously considered graduated licensing, but our conclusion was that although it would reduce the exposure of drivers, particularly young people, to certain risks, it would not provide proper experience. Equally—I believe that my hon. Friend touched on this point—it could reduce their ability to get to their jobs, let alone social events. Our belief is that we should ensure that education and awareness are beefed up.
	Motorcyclists are a critical group of particular concern, and we need to do a great deal for them. One reason why the swerve test is in place is that a number of motorcyclists are injured on our roads because they have to swerve to miss opening car doors or other obstacles in the road.
	Finally, I pay tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Bell, who came to see me yesterday, for their sterling work in light of the tragic death of their daughter Jordan. I recognise their hard work. We are studying drink-driving and gathering more data, and also studying drug-driving. There are, of course, already penalties for driving under the influence of drugs, but we are considering whether to create new offences to get a better message across. We want drug-driving to become socially unacceptable, just as drink-driving has done.
	Let me say—
	 Debate interrupted, and Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54(4)).
	 The Deputy Speaker put the deferred Questions (Standing Order No. 54(5)).

Malcolm Bruce: I am grateful to have the opportunity to debate the subject of school bus safety, and it is perhaps appropriate that this debate should follow the debate that we have just had on road safety.
	There is a problem, in that the statistics are not collected specifically on school bus safety. One of my proposals is that they should be monitored. I first raised the issue in the House 11 years ago, when I introduced a ten-minute Bill. Although there has been a reduction in the number of accidents and deaths reported, there are still too many. A number of them could have been prevented if other measures had been adopted, such as those that I have proposed and on which I should like to engage the Department.
	The Department for Transport has data for road casualties in Great Britain by year only up to 2007. Over a three-year period, the number of fatalities among school pupils when travelling to or from school in a bus or tram went down from 21 to eight, while the number of casualties went down from 424 to 338. Although that is an improvement, my area has been shocked by a number of incidents, including two fatalities within two weeks of each other in the past year or so, when 15-year-old Robyn Oldham and 12-year-old Alexander Milne were tragically killed having just got off a school bus.
	Robyn had just moved into the area and was travelling home from school at Turriff academy when she was struck down by a car, seconds after getting off the school bus. Robyn's mum Carla has been campaigning vigorously to raise awareness of the dangers as part of the Bus Stop! and School Bus Safety Group campaigns, to which I shall return. Just a fortnight after that, Alexander Milne—Zander to his family—was travelling home from school in Fraserburgh when he was also knocked down by a car. I have today spoken to Zander's father Philip and Robyn's mum Carla, who are both adamant that had there been a rule not to overtake a stationary bus, their children would be alive today. The House will therefore understand their strong feelings about the proposal which the Government are resisting for reasons that I hope I can engage with in this debate.
	As a result of those accidents, the campaign for improved safety on buses has been stepped up. It has gained support across a wide spectrum of councils, councillors, parliamentarians from the Scottish Parliament and from this House, and many local residents. All have concluded that improvements can be made, and many believe that changes should be effected through legislation so that a nationwide policy can be put in place, although I hope the Minister will understand that I am looking not only for legislation but for greater safety awareness and an opportunity to make everyone who uses the roads aware of the dangers so that they will behave in a way that will reduce the likelihood of such accidents.
	The School Bus Safety Group is run by Ron Beaty from Gardenstown in Aberdeenshire. His granddaughter Erin was seriously injured in a school bus incident five years ago. The group has set up a website—www.schoolbus.org.uk—and quite a lot of its proposals have been incorporated into the School Bus (Safety) Bill, which I have presented to the House. The Minister has seen the Bill and responded to it, and I hope that I shall be able to engage him on that subject tonight and subsequently.
	The Bill has cross-party support, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg), the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), the hon. Members for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) and for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and to my hon. Friends the Members for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) and for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith), all of whom have supported it. The Minister will be aware of the work done by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South and the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside on the Yellow School Bus Commission last year, which was widely welcomed by many campaigners.
	This is not a back-of-an-envelope Bill. It is a short Bill containing very specific proposals, and I have consulted widely on it and continue to do so. I am not suggesting that it would be a definitive law. I am not even asking the Government to adopt the Bill, much as I would like them to do so, but I would ask them to recognise that it contains serious proposals, which might need to be refined or modified but which could make a serious contribution to road safety.
	Every day, parents across the country entrust their children's safety to bus companies on the school run, although I am not suggesting for a minute that those companies and their drivers take that responsibility lightly. Nevertheless, I would like to engage with the Minister on some of the ideas in the Bill, and explain why I believe that they would contribute to road safety. The Bill suggests that school buses should
	"be single decked, be fitted with three point safety belts on every seat, be fitted with large external 'stop' signs which must be activated when the bus is stationary at bus stops, be brightly and distinctly coloured, and display prominently on the interior and exterior notices containing safety advice for drivers, passengers and other road users".
	Those are very specific proposals. I have also proposed that consideration should be given to the no-overtaking rule, and that a school bus safety council be established to monitor what is happening and to make recommendations on how our safety culture might be improved.
	I have also acknowledged that there would be costs involved; I am mindful of that fact. I do not want a culture in which only the big bus operators could provide school bus services and from which the small operators would be excluded. Also, I do not want to see over-regulation resulting in unrealistic costs, given that school transport, including transport over longer distances, has to be paid for by local authorities. My proposals have taken all that into account, in order to ensure that they are practicable, workable and affordable. In that context, I hope that the Minister will take them in the spirit in which they have been put forward.
	In the Minister's reply to me regarding the Bill, he has made a number of statements to the effect that he believes that the existing law is adequate to deal with these issues. Obviously, he will not be surprised to find that I am not entirely persuaded by all his arguments. He refers to school buses already having to meet "minimum regulatory standards", and states:
	"Road Vehicle Lighting Regulations require all buses carrying children (under 16) to or from school to be fitted with a prescribed sign showing clearly to the front and rear."
	I have to say that the signs in school buses are hopelessly inadequate in poor lighting. They are temporary, as they are put up for just that purpose, and they are easy to miss, particularly in poor visibility. He goes on to say:
	"Buses carrying children are also permitted to display hazard warning lights when stopping to allow children to board or alight."
	I suggest that that would not have the impact that a dedicated flashing sign would. It could be removable by all means; I understand that buses might well be used for other purposes. I have no problem with the signs being removable, but they need to be prominent, clear and flashing if they are to have the necessary impact.
	The Minister also said that under the regulations, additional signs would be "permissible". Well, it is fine that they are permissible, but they are not required. That is the difference between the Minister and me. He says that the culture is in place, but the law does not enforce it or require it to be enforced. I would suggest that the difference between us is the belief that we need to step up the regulatory framework to the point of requiring a more prominent display of warning signs.
	It is true that there have been improvements in the requirement for seat-belts provisions, but they are not fully implemented across the board. It has been put to me that, ideally, in the longer run, three-point belts would be inherently safer. According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents:
	"Although lap belts are not recommended for pregnant women, they are safe and suitable for other adult passengers. Three-point seat belts are safer, but wearing a lap belt is far better than wearing no seat belt at all."
	I know of people who have suffered severe injuries from lap belts, which would not have occurred if they had been wearing three-point belts. I thus suggest to the Minister that there is room for further discussion about having regulations or at least guidance that is stronger.
	Let me deal with the specific issue of the no-overtaking rule, which attracts very considerable support, certainly from the parents of schoolchildren. I notice that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South is in her place and I know that this measure is widely supported in the north-east of Scotland. It is believed to be an important contributor to road safety, yet it is resisted by the Department. The Department argues that on higher-speed roads, higher-speed braking might be required, which could be hazardous in itself, while drivers waiting from a side road might be less likely to let an approaching bus pull out in front of them and, indeed, might be encouraged to overtake dangerously when they think the bus is going to stop. That is the Department's main argument and I am not saying that those considerations are not relevant, but I am not entirely persuaded by them.
	The evidence I have seen suggests that where people know that something is the rule, they are likely to comply with it. The fact that it is advisory in the highway code seems to have absolutely no impact on behaviour at all. Perhaps because I have a direct interest—perhaps because I am, I hope, a careful and considerate road user and a parent of children of school age—I would certainly not consider overtaking a stationary bus that is picking up schoolchildren. I would be very mindful of the dangers and likelihood of children moving out into the road.
	I am, of course, in favour of a safety culture that encourages children to go to the back of the bus and to wait for the bus to move off. All those things will contribute to safety and they are all relevant, but I can say without fear of contradiction that there is widespread belief that a no-overtaking rule would save lives, and notwithstanding the reservations expressed by the Department, it would be a net contribution to safety rather than the other way round. That requires it to be an understood and accepted law. Other arguments have been deployed, but I hope that I have addressed the key ones and I hope that the Minister will take them in good faith as worthy of further reflection.

Malcolm Bruce: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. The Government take issue with that, but I certainly agree that there is such evidence. I would also say—I am conscious of my time—that Aberdeenshire and Moray councils cannot adopt that because of the law, but they have adopted a whole variety of safety measures. They have run an excellent campaign under the logo "Bus Stop", they have set up a website, and they have made changes to regulations requiring all buses to have seat belts by 2010 and prohibiting double-decker buses for school transport.
	I assure the House—this is directly relevant to the point made by the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning)—there is a clear willingness and, indeed, enthusiasm in Scotland to be given an opportunity to test the proposals in my Bill. I am a Liberal Democrat, not a Scottish nationalist, and I am not interested in an argument between this Parliament and the Scottish Parliament, but I am interested in establishing whether my proposals can be applied practically.
	The hon. Gentleman said that we had evidence from elsewhere. We could have evidence from the United Kingdom if the Government would consider, for example, allowing a no-overtaking rule to apply in Scotland—it would probably require an area that large to be effective. It could be policed and administered by the Scottish Executive, who are keen to introduce it, and by local authorities in Scotland, which are keen to be part of any test. There could be a very constructive relationship between the two Parliaments which would be widely welcomed, and I urge the Minister to give it serious consideration.
	A number of measures are being implemented by the local councils in the north-east of Scotland. Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen and Moray are to be congratulated on the action that they have taken. One example is the "See Me" system, consisting of a flashing light. We have dark evenings, which makes the light much more visible. A contact in Aberdeen suggested to me the introduction of warning signs that would indicate that children were passing the front or rear of the bus, rather like distance indicators. They could be fitted very cheaply, and it would be an example of the use of technology to deliver a safer environment for children travelling to and from school. It was described as a "bus-pedestrian safety control" by Alistair McGuire, who suggested it to me, and I think that the idea is worth exploring.
	I want to give the Minister time to give a proper reply. Let me end by saying that I want to engage with him, that I think the campaigners would like to engage with him, and that I appreciate his offering that opportunity. The debate has given me a chance to put some of the terms of my Bill on record, to make the speech that I could not make when I presented it, and to explain some of the parameters. I should be grateful if the Minister did not dismiss them out of hand. I am aware of his objections and I am sure that he will wish to rehearse them, but I hope he will acknowledge that my proposals have been given a great deal of consideration by, among others, bus users, local authorities, parents and others with an interest in bus safety. They believe that the implementation of those proposals would make a real contribution, and they are a little disappointed by the Department's resistance.
	The Department has a new ministerial team, which seems to me to present a fresh opportunity. Even if the Minister articulates the Department's reservations, which I expect him to do, I urge him to engage with us. I urge him to consider whether the Department can act, by means of adaptation or in some other way. I urge him to consider whether Scotland could test the proposals further, so that we could establish whether at least some of them could become law or be put into concrete effect. That would enable us to ensure that in future there are far fewer tragedies such as those that have blighted the lives of families in the north-east of Scotland and, indeed, throughout the United Kingdom.
	I hope that the Minister will engage with my proposals in a constructive spirit; I am sure that he will.

Sadiq Khan: I congratulate the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) on securing a debate on a subject that is so important to so many children, families and schools. How he managed to secure a debate on this subject that immediately follows an estimates day debate on road safety is beyond me, but I congratulate him on managing to do so.
	The right hon. Gentleman spoke of a coalition in his constituency, but it is no coincidence that the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) were present to hear his speech. The way in which he tempered his remarks, and the way in which he has led the campaign, are reflected in the fact that Members on both sides of the House were present to listen to his valuable speech.
	I was extremely sorry to hear about the recent deaths in Aberdeenshire of Alexander Milne, aged 12, and Robyn Oldham, aged 15, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. The family and friends of young people who are killed, and those who survive but whose lives may be utterly changed by a tragic collision, have my deepest sympathy. Nothing I can say will bring them comfort, but I assure the House that we take the safety of children and of all road users very seriously. The right hon. Gentleman referred to my offer to meet him to discuss not only his private Member's Bill, but other issues. It was a genuine offer and I will listen with open ears to the points he makes at that meeting, just as I did to his short speech. I will not make a Second Reading speech or try to rebut the points that he made. Some of the key parts of his proposal are in place, while it is always worth reflecting on others proposals, especially where tragedies could be prevented in future.
	All buses used for school transport must meet minimum regulatory standards to ensure that the vehicles can operate safely to carry passengers on the public highway. The safety provisions for single and double-decker buses are equivalent. Buses carrying children to and from school already have to show retro-reflective "Children" pictogram signs; their minimum size is prescribed, but larger versions may be used. Secondary reflective signs, with markings or wording to indicate that children are on board or nearby, are also permitted—the right hon. Gentleman wants them to be obligatory—as is the use of the hazard warning lights when children are getting on or off.
	Since 1997, irrespective of the vehicle's age, all coaches and minibuses—though not public transport-type buses designed for urban use—have been required to have either lap seat belts or lap and diagonal seat belts fitted if they are used to carry groups of children aged between three and 15 on organised trips. That would include dedicated home-to-school transport. Since 2001, seat belts have also been required in all new buses, except those designed for urban use where standing passengers are carried.
	The responsibility of choosing the appropriate vehicle for a particular journey rests with those making the arrangements. Schools and local authorities can specify requirements above the minimum within their contracts with school transport providers. For example, they could specify in the contract that they will accept only vehicles fitted with lap and diagonal belts, or that signs should be above the minimum size. They can also specify the fitting and use of additional hazard lights or illuminated signs, and the removal of signs when buses are not being used as school buses. It is perfectly open to local authorities in Scotland to do just that.
	Stopping all traffic from passing a school bus if children are getting on or off—a point mentioned by the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead—is of course a reserved matter; our traffic signs regulations, which would include the proposed stop signs on a school bus directed at other road users, apply in England, Scotland and Wales. National consistency in the use and meaning of traffic signs is extremely important to ensure good compliance, and this is particularly true with safety-critical signs. We have considered the suggestion of adopting the "all-stop" rule, and we do not think that it would be the safest option. Most children who travel to and from school by bus use ordinary public service buses, and would not benefit.
	One of our concerns is the possibility that children who were afforded such protection on school journeys might develop a false sense of security and take less care when getting off public service buses, or when crossing the road at other times. I promised the right hon. Gentleman that I would have open ears, however, and I will discuss the detail with him and listen to him at our meeting. He referred to a pilot, and we can discuss that when we meet. The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead referred to the United States and to Canada, and we could look at the empirical evidence that exists in those countries. It is a mixed picture, but we can discuss it when we meet. There will not be a rebuttal; it will be a genuine discussion of whether there are possible solutions to the problems that the right hon. Gentleman identified.
	The Department for Transport does much to promote the safety of children. Among other things, we issue advice, guidance and teaching materials. The Highway Code gives advice to drivers and other road users emphasising that drivers need to take special care when passing buses and bus stops. Rule 209 specifically covers stationary school buses displaying a school bus sign. The code is not in itself a legal document, but drivers are expected to be aware of its advice and failure to observe this can be cited in any prosecution for offences such as careless driving or dangerous driving. It cannot just be parents, or those with experience of bereavement, who drive safely; it must be all of us, especially around children.
	I took my driving test so long ago that it did not have theory element—I am not sure how long ago other hon. Members present took their tests—but I have been assured that the theory element that now exists in the 21st century stresses the need to be aware of, and allow for, all vulnerable road users. It is important that people getting off the bus take special care as well, especially because large vehicles can hide them from the view of passing drivers. We advise in the highway code that people of all ages need to be careful at all times when crossing the road, and particularly that they should wait until the bus has moved away. That advice is repeated in much of the teaching and publicity information that we distribute, including our free booklets aimed at children beginning to cross roads and travel independently.
	The first materials in our new, comprehensive set of road safety educational resources were issued this spring. They will cover all ages from four to 14, and will help teachers and local authorities to train and educate the children in their care. We have recently launched a new publicity campaign aimed at six to 11-year-olds, and we are planning a new teen road safety campaign for later this year. All these initiatives aim to instil good road-crossing behaviour and demonstrate the consequences of poor choices. We are currently disseminating the Kerbcraft child pedestrian training scheme, whose evaluation has shown that the scheme is highly effective in delivering a lasting improvement in children's road-crossing skills and understanding.
	I could have responded to the right hon. Gentleman's excellent speech by giving lots of reasons why we cannot do what he suggests, but I think it is far more important that I have put on record what currently takes place and will meet him to discuss with an open mind some of the matters he has raised. I welcome his comments, and he fairly said that it is not possible to change behaviour through legislation alone; we must look at all possible options and levers at our disposal in order to try to reduce deaths and injuries.
	As the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Paul Clark), said in closing the estimates day debate on road safety, the statistics for injuries and deaths have decreased, but they are still not low enough. The fact that last year we had the second lowest number of deaths among young people since records began does not give me any comfort when I consider the facts of the two deaths to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. They are tragic, and they could have been prevented.
	I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having introduced this debate, and to the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead for having stayed to the end. I consider the issue of promoting school bus safety to be very important. I hope that I have demonstrated both that we are very active and have an open mind in this area.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned .